Say It With A Straight Face
by Disenchanted Cynic
Summary: -"Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "
1. Chapter 1

**Say It With A Straight Face**

-

**summary**: "Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "

**timeline**: The characters are juniors in high school; I've also lumped Neji, Tenten, and Lee in with the juniors, to make it easier. I've made Temari and Kankuro seniors. A/U

**notes**: I can't help myself; I'm going to let myself get really excited for a minute. OH WOW, MY FIRST SEQUEL!! Okay, I'm done. Sorry.

* * *

**Chapter One**

* * *

Sasuke stood in front of the bathroom mirror, fastening the buttons on the dark blue collared shirt he was wearing, his messy, black hair flopping into his dark eyes. He impatiently brushed it away. He knew he was almost late, he had to meet his friends, and on top of that, there was a test in pre-calculus that he hadn't studied for. At all. It had been only a week, but eleventh grade already felt like it sucked. It was like once they left behind being sophomores, someone - someone very evil - hit the fast forward button. Three times. Until the DVD that was their education felt like it was very nearly cracking in half, it was spinning so fast. Well, you get the picture - junior year is one big head ache.

Don't get him wrong though - there were some good points. Great points in fact. Sasuke thought of one as he straightened the collar on his shirt - no more damn, scratchy uniforms that had to always be perfect and tucked in. It was a pretty subtle reason to love being a junior at his new school, but he would never have imagined how much he would appreciate being able to wear what you wanted, until he had been forced to experience the itchy, uniform-filled private school scene like he had for five years. Five years of those khaki pants that pinched you no matter what, and those stupid, plaid ties in school colors that matched the girl's uniform skirts.

As torturous as this sounded, there were even better things than escaping the private school and all it's damned fan girls. This great reason for enduring, maybe even loving, junior year was always in his head, not just when he pulled on comfy t-shirts. It was his friends.

Sasuke's best friend since elementary school, Naruto, was now at the same school as he was again, after being separated for three years of middle school and the first two years of high school. The goofy blonde was ecstatic to be back with his friend/brother. And even though he'd rather die than admit it, in a way, Sasuke was too. That was what best friends were for after all. In the single week Sasuke had been there, he'd met two other guys - Hyuga Neji and Nara Shikamaru, and the four of them stuck together. The concept of having a group of guys to hang out with felt totally new. Before, the Uchiha's only friends had been Naruto and a girl he had never even met in person before. The old school had been clogged with only two kinds of people: delusional stalker girls and their angry former boyfriends who had had a price on his head. Sasuke had been perfectly fine with that; he'd never needed friends before. But actually having them made him realise why most people thought they needed them. Friends made life better, and people think they need things that make life better.

And then there was his special friend, Haruno Sakura. No, she is not his girlfriend, and he knew that neither of them were fooling themselves into thinking that was the case. She was the other best friend that he'd never even known in person for awhile. They'd met in one of the strangest ways you could imagine. They were both writers on Fanfiction(.)net, one day he'd happened to review her story, and before long they were texting each other like best friends. They were best friends, other than Naruto, but it's possible to have two best friends (her and Naruto had become best friends too.) Then one day, coincidentally the first day of junior year, they had figured out that they actually were going to the same school. He smiled to himself, remembering the day - the look on her face was priceless.

Sakura liked him for who he was, and she was a cheerful, sweet, albeit slightly crazy person to talk to. Very opposite of him. One of the best parts was that she wasn't a fan girl. She openly punched him and yelled at him and fought with him and got on his nerves, and even told him a few of his Fanfiction stories sucked. He shuddered at the thought of her actually being part of the groups of crazy girls who stared at him and called him at home pretending to ask for homework, but it also almost made him laugh. She wasn't a fan girl, she was a friend - a precious one.

_'And I'm just about late for meeting that friend,' _he thought darkly to himself as he glanced for the billionth time at the round, cobalt blue kitchen clock on the wall. Sasuke grabbed his book bag and the large, black leather case that held his saxophone, pulled out his trigonometry book to study on the way, stepped into his shoes and left. Of course, forgetting the piece of toast he'd slammed into the toaster as his meager excuse for breakfast.

* * *

Cursing his watch, Sasuke ran to him and Sakura's spot - the big cherry tree halfway between each of their houses. As he approached the tree, Sasuke saw Sakura sitting under it already with her back against the trunk, waiting. She was reading a copy of her favorite book, Misery(honestly, he had no idea how such a cheerful, innocent girl could love a book about a crazy woman with an ax as much as she did.) She had a stick of chocolate pocky in her mouth like a cigar.

Sakura looked up when she heard him coming, and quickly stuffed Misery in her book bag and grabbed the pocky out of her mouth, probably hoping he hadn't seen her.

_'Oh, how wrong you are, Sakura, how wrong you are,' _he smirked to himself.

Sasuke swiped his bangs back in place and stood in front of her.

"Good morning, Sasuke!" she smiled up at him innocently, her green eyes wide and sparkling beneath her pink bangs.

He wordlessly held out a hand.

Her innocent smile turned into a dark scowl faster than you could say 'ax'. She glared up at Sasuke, who was now smirking, dug around in her bag, and pulled out a box of pocky.

"But, Sasuke, I just bought them," she complained, holding the box to her side as if protecting it, "And I don't care if I'm addicted to them! At least I'm not addicted to tomatoes like you, even though those are healthier I guess."

"You're hardly getting any closer to winning this argument, you know."

Her face went red, "Well, you suck!" she complained, her multipurpose catchphrase for when she couldn't come up with a comeback for him, "At least I'm not addicted to drugs like Paul Sheldon is addicted to Novril, you stupid _healthy_ person," her face suddenly went white as she realized that she had just given away the fact that she had been reading Misery again. Honestly, she was way too easy to trip up.

Sasuke smirked, "No need to look like that - I already saw you. So," he asked casually, "Were you at the part where Annie chops off the guy's foot, or the part where he tries to kill her with the typewriter? Because those are the parts that freak you out the most, and your eyes were bigger than dinner plates." His stomach growled at the food comment.

She rolled her eyes, "The typewritter part, Mr. Smart Ass."

He smirked in satisfaction and easily stole the pocky away from her while she was preoccupied with insulting him.

Sasuke chuckled at the stupefied expression on her face as she stopped her rant and watched him play with the lid on the box. "I don't care if you freak yourself out with Stephen King books as long as you quiz me on my pre-calculus." Another nice thing about Sakura - he may be a genius, but she was like the genius's college professor who had the crazy hair and always managed to out-genius the pupil. Not like he was complaining about her hair though. He liked it enough - he really didn't like the color pink at all, but it was unique, like her, so it fit.

"Fine," she started to quiz him.

He opened the box of pocky and stuffed one in his mouth. God, he was hungry. Then another one.

"Okay, sine plus cosine equals the tangent squared by what?"

She looked up from the textbook when there was a lack of an answer.

"UCHIHA! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY POCKY! YOU HYPOCRITE!" she shrieked, dropping the textbook and running to get the precious pocky back, narrowly missing knocking his saxophone out of his hands.

They fought for the pocky the rest of the way to school.

* * *

**Alright, this chapter was really just sort of an introduction, and to get you guys to understand the relationships between everyone here. Don't worry - the other chapters will be longer. (that was over 1400 words) Oh, Sasuke doesn't let Sakura eat pocky because it's not healthy for her and it's all she eats for breakfast, and she's not allowed to read Stephen King because then at night she gets freaked out and will call him from the corner of her bedroom at 2 am. Just to clarify those little inside jokes that you guys wouldn't know because these all happen in the weird little office cubical that is my brain.**

**I'm quite excited about the potential this story has, and I'm really pleased with how people were so on board with this and actually went out of their way to request it. I really had no idea so many people would consider humble, little 'Just Press Send' worthy of a sequel. Thanks so much for that. It's such a great feeling to have something you've created embraced by others.**

**Please let me know any thoughts or questions or anything you guys may have on this. Once again, thanks. Much love.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Say It With A Straight Face**

-

**summary**: "Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "

**timeline**: The characters are juniors in high school; I've also lumped Neji, Tenten, and Lee in with the juniors, to make it easier. I've made Temari and Kankuro seniors. A/U

* * *

**Chapter Two**

* * *

**deceiving fallen angel: Hey, guys! Because there were so many wonderful reviews for the first chapter, I've forced the Naruto cast to be here!!**

**cast: -miserably- Hello.**

**Sasuke: Cor, wake me up before 10 am on a Sunday again and you're dead.**

**deceiving fallen angel: -innocently- But Sasuke, if you killed me when I'm barely on chapter two, I'll never be able to write the parts where you and Sakura make out.**

**Sasuke: -flinches- -puts away kunai-**

**Sakura: Yay! Good job, Sasuke-kun!**

**Naruto: Seriously, if you killed Coraline, I wouldn't have anyone to talk to during my stupid, pointless, totally boring math class.**

**Kakashi: Hey, don't I teach math?!**

**all: ...**

**deceiving fallen angel: _Noooooo_... you teach pre-cal, silly! That's totally different.**

**others: Um... yeah! Yeah, totally. -cough-**

**Kakashi: Oh... okay!**

**Sakura: -nervous laugh- Uh, let's just get on with chapter two.**

* * *

Sasuke and Sakura ran down the wide halls of the high school, trying to get to first period class, already seriously late. They finally burst into the classroom through the open door and looked around. Everyone was already there and staring at them. Even their famously super-late teacher. They'd arrived even after him?! Not good. Sakura would like to take this minute to point out that it is all Sasuke's fault because they had to stop at the band hall first to put away his 'stupid saxophone'. Sasuke would like to tell her to shut the hell up, and that his saxophone is less stupid that her.

"Sasuke. Sakura. You're late," Kakashi said sternly, raising an eyebrow. He was probably surprised that he, Hatake Kakashi, was lecturing his students on tardiness. Oh, what has the world come to?!

Sakura hung her head in embarrassment, sneaking a glare at her partner in tardiness and Sasuke simply met his teacher's stare blankly.

"I... assume you were doing something with... pocky?" Kakashi asked uncertainly, eying the teenagers in front of him, who were covered in pocky cream and crumbs of biscuit.

Sakura blushed and dug around in her bag. She pulled out the box of pocky she had managed to take back from Sasuke after he kidnapped it. It was slightly squished, rather beat up looking - especially after being unceremoniously stuffed into a saxophone case, and there was now only one stick left in the box. Sakura held it up.

Kakashi eyed the box and nodded. He pulled out the last piece and popped it in his mouth behind his mask, "Mmm... chocolate; my favourite. Okay, I guess you're not in trouble then," he grinned behind the cloth covering his mouth, "You can sit down now."

Sakura anime cried and Sasuke smirked.

They both sat down, Sasuke trying to trip Sakura on her way to her desk and her punching him hard in the shoulder.

Sakura's seatmate, Yamanaka Ino, laughed and leaned over to brush pocky out of Sakura's hair once her pink-headed friend had sat down beside her. Ino had somehow managed to become Sakura's best girl friend, even though they were total opposites.

"Hey, I'm gonna go to the mall after school. Wanna come with?" Ino asked, "I heard Shikamaru tell Kiba he'd go with him to check out some video game, which means he'll be with the guys, which means I can get a leg-up on Temari!"

"God, are you still stalking that poor boy, Ino?"

"Noooo, I just _happened_ to hear that information, Miss I Assume The Worst In Everyone."

"Yeah. _Right_."

Ah, the blonde's three great loves: shopping, Nara Shikamaru, and trying to beat Temari to Shikamaru. The last one was most annoying. Those two girls were insane. Sakura shook her head to herself. According to Hyuga Hinata, they'd been competing for Shikamaru since seventh grade, getting crazier and more desperate each year. Sakura thought it was amazing that such a shopaholic, girly-girl and a cheerful, tomboyish senior could turn so... so... she couldn't even explain it... over some guy. Shikamaru was smart and pretty nice, but lazy as hell and almost as annoying on occasion. Not worth eight cat fights a day and a hell of a lot of plotting and revenge in Sakura's opinion.

* * *

"Ah, the moment we've all been waiting for," Kakashi said brightly as everyone moaned like they were dying of the stomach flu, or worse, for these poor students know what's coming, "Kakashi's fabulous two-hundred question pre-cal test! How fun is that?!"

No one answered.

The blond boy sitting beside Sasuke groaned again and slammed his head onto the desk. Sasuke felt like groaning too, but kept it in and rolled his eyes instead, smirking, for Uchiha's own two-hundred question pre-cal tests. The boy beside him glared out of the corners of his eyes and lifted his head at the other boy's smug expression.

"Think you're such a genius, Mr. Smart Ass Uchiha?! I swear, I'll make a better score on this than you!!" he slapped his hand on the desk. Believe it! I, Uzumaki Naruto, will kick your _asssss_!!!"

"Sit _down_, Naruto," Kakashi said in an annoyed voice.

Sasuke rolled his eyes as Naruto got ready to start back-talking Kakashi, and probably land himself in the principal's office, "Naruto, you have a D in this class right now; I have an A. Give. It. Up. Don't make a bigger fool of yourself that you already have," he paused, letting the insult sink in, "Dead last."

Naruto's tan face flushed beneath the whisker marks. Sasuke may be the hyper, blue-eyed, ramen-loving boy's best friend, but man was he getting on Naruto's nerves. Thinks he's so superior. Grr. Oh yeah? Two can play at this game.

Naruto grinned slyly and slid closer to Sasuke. He put his pinkie finger in the air and grinned at the annoyed expression on the dark-haired boy's face, "So you and Sakura are- ?" he shook his pinkie.

Sasuke punched Naruto so hard he fell out of his chair and into the middle of the aisle.

"OWWWWWWWWWWW!! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"

"Being a dobe. Dobe."

Naruto rubbed his face and glared as he sat up. He actually hadn't been expecting such a... strong... reaction from Sasuke. Heh, heh. No way was Naruto letting this go. This _must_ mean something important.

* * *

"Sooooooooooo," Ino drawled, twirling a long strand of pale blonde hair from her ponytail around her finger, "What were you and Uchiha doing before class? Making out?" she asked eagerly.

Sakura rolled her eyes and flicked her in the head.

"No! Shut up, Ino. We were just late."

"Oh, Sakura," Ino smiled, "I totally know you like him."

Sakura gave her an annoyed look and wrote her name on her pre-cal test, "We're just friends, Ino."

"Sure."

"We are!!"

"Sure, sure... yeah... okay."

"I so hate you right now."

"QUIET, STUDENTS, THIS IS A TEST!!!"

* * *

Somehow they all managed to make it through pre-calculus alive, as Kakashi sat behind his desk with his feet propped up, reading his latest perverted book and ignoring the death glares most of his students were sending his way.

* * *

Sasuke and Sakura were sitting in physics a few hours later, bored and paying absolutely no attention to their teacher, Kurenai. Sasuke was watching Sakura scribble in her Fanfiction notebook under her desk in front of him, no doubt writing the next chapter to her latest story. He watched her scrawl furiously into the blue spiral, her green eyes bright with inspiration. She was totally zoned out. Sasuke absentmindedly watched her as he pushed his pen around with his finger, his eyes glazed over and not much better off than her.

"I will tell you your partners for your project tomorrow," Kurenai was saying, sending her half-dead students an annoyed look.

"YOUTHFUL KURENAI-SENSEI!! MAY I PLEASE BE WITH SAKURA?! SHE IS SO YOUTHFUL AND HIP!!" Rock Lee shouted from the front row, his eyes rounder than usual beneath his massive eyebrows.

"NO!! I'm Sakura's partner!!"

"No, me!!"

"MEEEEE!!"

-punch- -punch- -kick- -punch- -blows landing- -screaming-

" HEY, IF WE'RE PICKING PARTNERS, I CALL SASUKE!!"

"No, he's mine!!"

"Mine!!"

"What'd you say, bitch?!"

"Grrr!!"

-punch- -slap- -bite- -slap- -punch- -screaming-

Sasuke, Sakura, Kurenai, and some normal people all stared at the love-sick girls and slackers in disbelief. How are people like this in an Advanced Placement class anyway?

"ENOUGH!!" Kurenai finally shouted, "You know that only I can pick partners, so I'll be sure to not put you with whoever you just requested."

"AWWWWWWWW!!"

"Great, now I'll never pass without the nerd as my partner to do the work for me," some guy muttered to himself.

"SAKURA IS NO NERD!! SHE IS A BEAUTIFUL, YOUTHFUL BLOSSOM OF YOUTH!!"

"Oh yeah?"

"YEAH!"

-fighting sounds-

* * *

Um... let's skip to social studies.

* * *

Sakura plopped down beside Hyuga Hinata as their infamous teacher, 'Freaky Ibiki' scratched his nails on the blackboard for silence.

"Hey, Hinata," Sakura smiled as she wrestled with her overcrowded book bag for her world history textbook.

"Hi, Sakura."

"Yeah, hi, Sakura! Hinata!" Naruto yelled as he came dashing into the classroom, late mind you, and taking the seat on the other side of Sakura.

"Naruto," Sakura smirked at his hyper attitude.

"Eww! You remind me of teme when you do that!!" Naruto whined. He cringed, shaking his head back and forth as if it would erase his memory like an Etch-a-Sketch, "He was so mean to me in pre-cal! And that test was so hard! I probably got another 'D'. Stupid Sasuke-teme's gonna rub it in again." Sakura smirked again at her goofy friend.

"Gah! I'm going over here where it's normal and people don't remind me of Sasuke!" the blond whined, taking his books and sitting next to Hinata.

"Hey, Hinata!"

"H-h-hey, -gulp- N-n-n-naruto."

"Are you... feeling okay, Hinata? You look like you're going to faint. Oh, you probably just took the pre-cal test. I feel the same way..." he nodded his head understandingly.

"I-i-i'm good."

"SILENCE!!" Ibiki roared, slapping the desk with a ruler.

* * *

Um... social studies isn't very fun either, because the teacher is sort of... completely insane. It's pretty entertaining to Sakura though, who likes watching weird things happen to the colour of Hinata's face when she's around Naruto.

Ah, time for gym.

* * *

"MY YOUTHFUL STUDENTS WHO ARE FULL OF YOUTH AND BURSTING WITH HIP!! YOU ALL ARE SO HIP AND YOUTHFUL THAT YOU ALL ARE GOING TO RUN TWENTY LAPS!! OF YOUTH!!" Gai shouted, "AND LEE!! MY WONDERFUL LAD OF YOUTH AND PERFECT, YOUTHFUL HAIR!! YOU CAN RUN TWENTY AROUND KONOHA!! YOUTH LAD AWAY!!"

"OH, THANK YOU, MASTER!! I WILL USE MY YOUTHFUL POWERS TO MAKE YOU PROUD!!"

"LEE!!"

"MASTER!!"

"LEE!!"

"MASTER!!"

-hug-

"AND MAYBE WHEN I FINISH, SAKURA WILL BE SO IMPRESSED, SHE WILL GO OUT WITH ME!!" Lee sighed, pumping his fists, flames in his eyes, "I WILL DO IT!!" he flashed Sakura a shiny smile before running outside. "YOUTH LAD AWAY!!" Sakura hid behind Tenten until he left.

"You ready to run?" Tenten grinned, sprinting lithely over to Sakura and slapping her on the back.

"It's all I can do halfway decent in gym," Sakura moaned, sending her tomboy friend a glare as she laced up her gym shoes.

"Don't worry - I have your motivation," Tenten said slyly, patting the pocket of her uniform gym shorts. There was a bag of pocky inside, "Remember, catch me and it's yours," Tenten said in a sing-song voice.

Sakura really sucked at sports, while Tenten excelled. One day, the brunette found out that when Sakura was 'properly motivated' she wasn't half bad as a runner. And running was usually all Gai had them do.

The teens started their laps. Naruto and Sasuke jogged together and watched Tenten sprint her laps and Sakura speed behind her like a madwoman. If there hadn't been pocky involved, Sakura would probably have fainted by now. Okay, not really, she just wouldn't be sprinting her ass off with Tenten.

Sasuke wiped his hand across his sweaty forehead and watched the two girls with an amused expression. Naruto caught him looking and grinned. Time for his payback.

"So... you like Sakura?" he grinned.

"I told you, idiot, she's just my friend," Sasuke gritted out through his teeth, really not wanting to have to deal with Naruto and expend energy by punching him when he still six laps to go.

"I want proof then. Here's the fail-safe way: say "I don't like Sakura" five times with a straight face, and I'll know it's true," the blond grinned, shaking a sweaty piece of hair out of his eyes.

"That's stupid," Sasuke scoffed, wiping his forehead.

"You're just scared to do it," Naruto said, smirking.

"Fine," Sasuke growled, "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-..."

Naruto burst out laughing so hard he had to stop running and rest his hands on his knees, "You didn't even get through one time!! Man, have you got it bad!!"

"SHUT UP!! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!!"

"Okay then," Naruto said, grinning as he caught Sasuke watching Sakura run with Tenten again.

The two girls finished their laps in record time as Gai applauded them enthusiastically on their youthfulness. Sakura collapsed and Tenten tossed her the pocky, grinning. The brunette giggled as Sakura laughed like a maniac and hugged her pocky as she rolled around on the floor.

* * *

**deceiving fallen angel: _Finally_!! Chapter two is done!!**

**Sasuke: -pout- Could you quit making Naruto bug me in the story? I don't like it.**

**deceiving fallen angel: No! -laughs maniacally- Since when has that ever stopped me before?**

**Sasuke: -takes out kunai-**

**Kakashi: No! Remember the make-out scenes, Sasuke! Just remember the make-out scenes!!**

**Sakura: -cute anime eyes- For me, Sasuke-kun?**

**Sasuke: Grr... -puts away knife, once again.**

**Naruto: Someone's feeling a little violent this chapter.**

**Kakashi: You're telling me.**

* * *

**Alright, that little bit of comedy was for those of you who asked for the conversations from previous stories. That's the last time I'm doing them as well, so this is farewell. Well, I hope you all are enjoying the story as much as I'm enjoying writing it.**

**This chapter is for my precious Matt. I remember when I failed the 'straight face' with his name. -grins sheepishly- Anyway, love you, Matt.**

**I appreciate the feedback, guys. Thanks eternally, and much love!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Say It With A Straight Face**

-

**summary**: "Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "

**timeline**: The characters are juniors in high school; I've also lumped Neji, Tenten, and Lee in with the juniors, to make it easier. I've made Temari and Kankuro seniors. A/U

* * *

**Chapter Three**

* * *

Sakura rolled over between her warm, comfortable bed full of blankets and sighed. She pulled the covers up higher over her head and reluctantly glanced at the clock on her bedside table to see how much time she had left to sleep before school would ruin yet another morning by forcing her to get up early.

The glowing, red numbers read 7:55 am.

7:55... mm...

_7:55?!_

Sakura jumped out of bed, her bones popping, and grabbed the alarm clock in her hands. She reread the screen several times, as if the LCD had just been playing some cruel, sick joke on her.

-_beep_-

7:56

Uh oh.

"GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

Sakura glared at the alarm clock that she had in fact remembered to set. More like the clock had forgotten her - stupid thing kept resetting itself. She swore it hated her because she pressed the 'snooze' button every morning a little harder than necessary. She threw it out the window in disgust and ran into the bathroom at a speed that would have made Tenten and Gai proud.

* * *

It didn't help that Sakura's brain had decided to pick today to take an extended vacation. She pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, backwards, fixed it, brushed her hair with her tooth brush for two whole minutes before noticing, and accidentally dropped trash in a drawer and her hair brush in the wastebasket.

She stumbled out of the house without breakfast, preparing to make a run for it to school, when she saw Sasuke sitting in a car parked in the street, in front of the house across from hers, smirking. She noticed his amused expression and immediately looked down, wondering if maybe she had forgotten something important, like pants.

Sasuke leaned over inside the car and opened the passenger door. Sakura got in, grinning sheepishly, and they actually managed to get to school with five minutes to spare.

"Eh heh, uh, thanks for realising I was late, Sasuke," Sakura said, blushing embarrassed as Sasuke manoeuvred the car into a student slot.

Sasuke cracked a smile, and pulled out the alarm clock she'd thrown out the window, which was now totally destroyed.

* * *

-about fifteen minutes earlier-

Sasuke was just driving, not paying attention to anything in particular, that is, until an alarm clock flew out of the sky and hit the street, missing his car by inches.

_'What the hell? Was that an... alarm clock?!'_

_

* * *

_

"I didn't know you had such a nice car," Sakura commented, trying to change the subject from her folly and making a face at the broken clock that was bleeding wires and gears all over the back seat.

The Uchiha shrugged, "It's supposed to rain pretty hard today, so walking wouldn't be the smartest thing."

They both got out of the car and headed to first period as the bell rang and everyone started to walk inside.

"Really, thanks, Sasuke," Sakura said at their lockers, a gave him a quick hug, "You're the best," she smiled, before disappearing into Kakashi's classroom. Once inside, she grimaced to herself as she felt some weird emotions pop up from the hug. Emotions she really wanted to squash right now, because she knew they were foolish.

Sasuke felt his face go pink and he gave a small, involuntary smile. He jerked his head sharply and slapped himself before anyone could see him standing there like that, and silently stalked into pre-cal after her.

* * *

Naruto, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Neji, Kiba, and Shino sat at the same table for lunch in the noisy cafeteria packed with the rest of the juniors, who were basically screaming and acting retarded. Naruto gulped down ramen blissfully and Neji and Shikamaru talked, while Shino let a beetle crawl all over his hand and Kiba watched. Same as any other day really, except for one thing. Sasuke stabbed at his plain, white rice and tried to force himself to quit looking towards the girls' table, where Hinata, Sakura, Ino, and Tenten sat. Temari was a senior so she had the second lunch.

Damn, he looked again. This was hard.

_'What the hell is happening to me anyway? Why can't I just leave Sakura alone?'_

Naruto chugged the last of his ramen down and Neji and Shikamaru started to disagree about something and began punching each other. Naruto glanced across the table at the Uchiha and grinned, a noodle still stuck to his face.

"That's the seventh time you've looked over there in the past five minutes, teme. And you're not eating," Naruto gave a low whistle, "You've got it worse than I thought."

"What do I have, Naruto?" Sasuke snapped through clenched teeth, glaring. He was really starting to lose patience with Naruto.

Naruto grinned and shouted, "Lovesick, Sasuke! You're lovesick!!" Sasuke cringed. That was _way_ too loud.

Sure enough, all the guys turned around to look at the best friends, "Okay, did we hear correctly? You, Uchiha? Lovesick?" Neji and Shikamaru actually stopped fighting and turned to the action.

"Must be Sakura," Neji said.

"Yeah." "I though so." "Totally." "Duh." all the guys agreed in unison.

Naruto turned to a very pissed off looking Sasuke with wide eyes, "See, Sasuke? It's soooo obvious."

Sasuke closed his eyes and tried to unclench his fists, breathing deeply as he rubbed his fingertips into his temples, "No, I-

"Ten dollars that they're a couple by the end of this week," Kiba said, raising a hand and grinning.

"At the rate loverboy seems to be at, I'll double that bet, for by this weekend," Shikamaru smirked.

"Five on next week!"

Sasuke growled, giving up on calming himself, and threw an apple at Naruto, who was laughing hysterically.

* * *

"Okay, next group - Uchiha Sasuke, you're with Haruno Sakura," Kurenai said, sending the stalker fans and slackers a glare, "Because they were the only ones who didn't ask to be paired up. And that way none of you get them!" Kurenai said, smiling evilly, obviously proud of her brilliant solution.

"Awwwwww..."

"QUIET!!"

Sakura twisted around in her chair and smiled at Sasuke, "That's great! We can get a head start in the library today! Well, if you want."

Sasuke nodded wordlessly, gripping the bottom of his desk, his jaw tight. As is he wasn't confused enough already.

* * *

Sakura nudged Ino as Asuma droned on and on in their English Literature class.

"Ino... wake up," she muttered under her breath.

"Huh? Whaa? Where are the rainbow panda bears?" Ino slurred as her eyes blinked open.

Sakura took her by the shoulders and shook her.

"Wake up, Ino!"

"No..."

"Hey, is that Temari kissing Shikamaru?"

"WTF, you bitch!!!!" Ino shrieked, jumping out of her chair, wide awake. Everyone in the class turned around to stare at her, including Asuma, his hand halfway to his mouth with some Tic Tacs.

Stare.

"Uh... she means _'what?' _That's not chronological text structure in the third piece - it's inductive!" Sakura said speedily, yanking Ino's ponytail to pull her quickly back down into her seat, "And inductive can be such a bitch to find, you know!"

Asuma glanced at the board, "Oh! You're right, girls! Sorry. I hadn't caught that. Good eye!" he said, chomping down on his handful of Tic Tacs. He was a known smoker and he couldn't smoke in school unless he wanted Tsunade to kill him and totally eat his soul, so Asuma went through about six packs of the little mints a day, to compensate.

"Thanks," Ino muttered gratefully as she fixed her ponytail. Once Asuma's attention was back to the board, she laid her head back down on her arms and closed her eyes. Sakura poked her. Hard.

"OWWWWW!!"

Asuma and the class looked at them again.

"Owwww! You missed a comma - it's almost painful to look at!" Sakura groaned, wincing at Ino.

Asuma looked at the board and added the comma, "You girls are just on a whole other level today!" he remarked proudly through his Tic Tacs. The front row got sprayed with Original Mint flavour.

Sakura poked Ino again, more softly. The blonde turned her head and glared at her friend with sleepy, blue eyes.

"Sorry - you have to stay awake in class."

"But I hate English Lit," Ino moaned, "It's so boring it'll kill me if I pay attention! Just talk to me instead; screw text evidence," she whined, throwing in some puppy dog eyed looks for good measure.

Sakura rolled her eyes but brightened up a little, "Me and Sasuke get to be partners for our physics project. We're going to work on it today after school."

"Aww," Ino gushed, clasping her hands together excitedly, "You guys' first date."

"Shut up - it's not a date. We're working on a school project. In the library."

"Well, you're both kind of nerds, only you don't look like it, so the library should be nice and romantic. Like one of those cute, movie scenes. Geeks in love."

Sakura slapped Ino's arm, "Quit it. It's not like that."

"Then why do you sound so excited?" Ino countered, grinning.

"You know I love quantim physics."

"Yeah, but not as much as Uchiha Sasuke."

"Ugh! You're impossible!!"

"Thanks - I try."

* * *

"Can't come over for ramen, Naruto. I've got to work on a project with Sakura after school," Sasuke commented to Naruto, not sounding the least bit sorry, as they walked down the hall out of boy's health class to their final classes.

"Sakura... project... EWW!! Too much information, Sasuke!" Naruto shouted. Sasuke cringed. Probably not the smartest wording around Naruto, especially after coming out of a health class. Awkward.

"Wha - You perv! Our project for Kurenai's class. _Physics_."

"_Suuuuuure_."

"Naruto-" Sasuke started to say, getting really annoyed with him again. He was really going to have to start watching himself. If Naruto kept doing this to him his blood pressure would become terrible. He already had a headache.

"Wait," Naruto threw out an arm and made Sasuke crash into it just before they entered the fine arts hall, where Naruto had theatre arts and Sasuke had band.

"What, you idiot!?" Sasuke snapped, stooping down to pick up the books Naruto had just made him drop.

"Don't go to eighth period. Go get some flowers!"

"What?! No - why?!"

"For Sakura when you meet her after school for your date," Naruto said, as if he was talking to an idiot.

Sasuke glared, "I told you, it is not a date."

"Fine, fine, not a date," Naruto said, sticking his hands in the air as if in surrender.

He went back stage for theatre arts and stood beside Ino, the only one who had that class with him. They both watched Sasuke stalk off, muttering something like, "It's not an effing date."

Ino and Naruto exchanged a look.

"It is so a date."

"Totally."

* * *

Other than health, which would be... awkward, English lit, and world history, band was one of the few classes Sasuke had without Sakura. He glanced at the clock behind their director, Anko. Class was nearly over. Key word: nearly. No way was one minute supposed to take that long. He was positive that the clock needed new batteries or something.

"Good job, band! More percussion, and I only want battery, trombone, and euphonium this time!!" Anko shouted at the top of her very loud lungs, even though they weren't even playing anymore and the room was silent. Damn, was she loud. Sasuke, in the front row, flinched, and an annoyed expression immediately came across his face at the giggles and girlie shrieks that pierced the silence from behind him.

When their reeds weren't in their mouths being played, the entire back row of the saxophone section shrieked and giggled. It was the largest section in the band, but all it really was was a section clogged with screaming fan girls who somehow (he didn't even want to know how) found out that he played the alto saxophone. So they all joined so they could spent eighth period screaming and trying to touch him.

"Clarinet, alto sax, oboe!!" Anko shouted.

"Good job on those staccato eighth notes, Uchiha," Anko hollered as they lowered their mouthpieces at the end of the line.

And an outbreak of giggles.

"Oh, Sasuke, you're awesome!"

"Go out with me, Sasuke!

"I WOULD BEAT MYSELF WITH THIS SAXOPHONE FOR YOU!!"

_'Ugh! Shut up, you stupid girls!! What is wrong with you?!' _he thought, cringing and glaring behind him, as Anko ran and took away Suicidal Fan Girl's saxophone before she could hit herself. On the other side of him, Naji patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. Thank God Neji was a sax too; honestly, he wouldn't have survived alone with them.

Anko returned to her podium, "You girls, though, on second alto sax part - awful!! We're doing staccato, not practically legato!! And we're in the key of B flat -what the eff are you guys in, G?!" Anko screamed, whacking her directors stand over and over with her baton.

They just giggled again, probably unaware of what a B flat was anyway.

-whack!- -whack!- -whack!- -whack!- -whack!- -whack!-

_'What's with all the stupid, loud, obnoxious girls today?!'_

"Try it again!!" Anko hollered, raising her baton.

_'Try to stop shouting - my ears are bleeding and then I won't be able to hear the metronome.'_

"WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!" Anko shrieked, gripping at her hair and practically snapping the baton in half. It bent in her hands and got flung across the room into a tuba player.

"OWWW!!"

More giggling. Giggling should be illegal.

_"Maybe if you bitches left me alone, you'd have some free time on your hands. Then you could practice more and maybe, just maybe, you'd be able to play those instruments a little better than a ten year old. No better yet, get the hell out so i can have some peace and quiet. Well, even if they left, there's still Loudmouth-sensei over there...'_

"UCHIHA!! QUIT LOOKING AT THE CLOCK!! I DON'T CARE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HERE, YOU JUST ARE!!"

"Grrr..."

Neji sighed and patted him on the back again.

**

* * *

**

**Next chapter is the long awaited date! **

**Love the feedback, guys! Keep at it! Much love.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Say It With A Straight Face**

-

**summary**: "Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "

**timeline**: The characters are juniors in high school; I've also lumped Neji, Tenten, and Lee in with the juniors, to make it easier. I've made Temari and Kankuro seniors. A/U

* * *

**Chapter Four**

* * *

_'Oh, God, why did I even sign up for this stupid class anyway? Can you say torture?!' _Sakura moaned in her head, slumping over in her seat. Yes, she was in AAS, or 'Advanced Academic Strategies' class, which sucks. It was basically a class where you took notes on taking notes. B-O-R-I-N-G.

_'What idiot can't take notes?' _she began fuming to herself, running a hand through her pink hair like she always did when she felt restless_, 'You come, listen, and write stuff down - big deal. Ugh, good thing I can still get out of this class if I don't like it. I'm sooo stopping by the counselor's office after school.'_

"And then, you hold your properly sharpened pencil like this... make sure you used a district approved sharpener and the degree of sharpness to your pencil is still up to code so you don't gouge your eyes out, cuz man are those things sharp. That's how Ibiki-sensei lost his left eye you know..."

_'On second thought-_

"Genma-sensei, may I have the hall pass and go to the counselor's office?" Sakura asked, sticking her hand in the air and tapping her foot up and down impatiently.

Genma looked up from his 'dangerous pencils' and gave her a big smile through his pencil-handling goggles, "Sure thing, Miss Haruno!"

_'Eh - he is waaaaaaay too cheerful.'_

As soon as Sakura had the hall pass she bolted out the door. _'Nothing wrong with staying down here until class is over. Hm... I wonder what art class would be like...'_

* * *

Sasuke literally ranout of the band room to escape from either the horde of saxophone girls that were probably chasing him by now, or Naruto, who would probably be really annoying again. Or both. What a hard life.

Because he ran, he was early as he descended the main staircase of the high school and walked through the door of the library. It was a huge room full of shelves of books, magazine racks, some nice niches with comfy, green couches and even rugs to read on, and dozens of big, wooden tables. It even had computers that actually weren't crappy. Sasuke had always liked it in here - even the lighting was nice, because the walls were made of glass, so it was like one big wall-to-wall window that the sun always shone through just right. Well, that was his opinion anyway. Actually, the library was nearly always as empty as a ghost town, especially after school. No one would ever in their right mind spend a single second more than they absolutely had to in school. Well, that was the slackers anyway.

Sasuke dropped his book bag below a table, took out his physics book, and started reading as he waited.

"Hey," he heard Sakura's voice greet him about five minutes later. Sasuke looked up to see her smiling down at him. He stopped reading and she dumped her books on the table and sat down.

Sakura flipped open her textbook to the proper chapter and met his eyes as he watched her. She smiled, "So, first we have to pick a topic. Have any ideas? I was thinking of taking a step up to quantum physics, and I've been reading Ford's essays, but we can think of something else if you want to."

Sasuke nodded. He smirked and said in a teasing tone, "How about we make a graph of the distance and speed you run away per number of minutes you read your horror novels, and then we use that to calculate your velocity of running to Ino's, my house, and Naruto's place. And then we can even-

"Ha ha," Sakura rolled her eyes, "Actually, Sasuke, I was thinking maybe we could do a study where we calculate how many Newtons there are of unbalanced forces in your head! I'm thinking that your ego is what sets you off, and by maybe 40 to 50 Newtons, but I could be wrong; we could just check-

"Hurtful, Sakura," Sasuke chuckled, smirking. Sakura grinned and laughed with him.

* * *

Outside the library, Ino and Naruto were pressing their faces against the glass wall/window, watching their best friends with a couple of identical huge grins on their faces. You know, that expression that only Ino and Naruto can do. Hinata just sort of stood off to the side, glancing worriedly out of the corners of her eyes at the unstable teenagers.

"Shikamaru's gonna win the bet - he said they'd be together by this weekend," Naruto said grinning, "Damn that genius."

"Totally," Ino agreed, remembering the conversation she'd just had with Sakura as they'd walked down to the library together.

* * *

_"Ino?" Sakura had asked suddenly, looking away from the blonde._

_"Hm?" Ino looked up._

_Sakura picked at the strap of her messenger bag, "I... know I always act annoyed and that you're teasing me about Sasuke, but... I... uh... really do like him."_

_"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!"_

_"Ino-_

_"I was right!" Ino sang, and started doing her 'I was right' dance right in the middle of the hallway, which looked suspiciously similar to 'Stayin' Alive'._

_"Ino-_

_"I... was... ri...ight! Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh! I was so right! I was so right! Uh-_

_"INO!"_

_"Huh?" Ino stopped singing and jerked herself out of the weird disco moment. Good thing too - people were starting to stare._

_"Just... don't tell anyone," Sakura mumbled, going pink._

_"Why?"_

_"I think it would ruin our friendship if he knew. He doesn't like me," Sakura said, "I'm sure of it," she sighed, sounding tired._

_'How wong you are, Sakura,'_Ino thought, smirking to herself as she watched them through the window.

Naruto turned around and faced the quiet Hyuga behind him, "This is great, huh, Hinata?! Let's go and get ramen together to celebrate!"

"O-o-okay, s-sure." Grinning, Naruto grabbed her hand and ran out of the building, while Hinata concentrated on not fainting.

Ino smirked as the new couple-to-be (if she gets to play matchmaker, and Ino always gets to play matchmaker) on her radar left together. She looked around and groaned. Now if only she could get herself a love life. Dejected, she slumped out of the school building after them, but perked up immediately. There was always plan B - go stalk Shikamaru! Grinning, Ino ran off to enjoy her Saturday night in some bushes outside the Nara home.

* * *

"We're making great progress," Sakura commented offhandedly, leafing through a section on sigma properties as Sasuke picked up another book from the piles that were surrounding them.

"Definitely," he agreed, jotting something down in his notes. He glanced at a clock on the wall, "Hn, it's already 7:15. We probably have to-

"LEAVE!!" Shizune, the librarian screeched, as she ran out of the librarian's office at the back of the library and started picking up the science books. She threw their notebooks at them and kept running around like a beheaded chicken, picking up books.

They both stared at her with looks that questioned her sanity.

"What?! That storm is going to hit any minute, you know, and it's going to be bad!! Don't you delinquents watch the Weather Channel? Now OUT!!" she shrieked. Shizune ran them out like a cattle herder and chased them all the way out the front entrance, her arms still full of textbooks. I guess that's why no one really goes to the library - they don't necessarily enjoy being chased by a strange woman armed with heavy books.

* * *

The biting cold wind blew like a hurricane and whipped their hair in their faces as they walked through the school parking lot. As they got into Sasuke's car the sky got darker and darker, threatening to let loose the torrents of freezing rain drops inside. Thunder cracked in the distance and all of a sudden the heavens opened up like... someone dropping a swimming pool out of an airplane! Yeah, that's it! The point is, it was pouring rain as Sasuke tried to drive home, seeing as his house was closer, so they could wait out the rain there.

He barely made it to the proper street without crashing. The Uchiha carefully reached the right estate and drove slowly up the familiar drive, which was now barely visible in the downpour. As he tried to pull in, the car nearly lost control and skidded into the garage, banging against a wall with it's bumper and violently jolting the two inside.

"You okay?" Sasuke asked Sakura breathlessly, their hearts pounding hard in their chests as they clutched their seats.

She nodded back, wide-eyed and a little pale.

Sasuke listened to the rain hit the roof of the garage like someone dribbling basketballs up there, and more thunder cracked in the distance.

"Sakura," Sasuke said, a bolt of lightning illuminating his face in the dim, "You're staying the night."

* * *

**Wow, that felt like a story chapter, but it feels like too much happened to make it any longer. -shrugs- The part about Sakura quitting AAS at the beginning may sound pointless, but I assure you, that plays a part in the story later.**

**Huh, you know, I guess because of the storm Ino's plans are now ruined. Temari's too - she gets the same idea and sometimes she and Ino run into each other in the bushes outside Shikamaru's house, which results in a cat fight. So yeah, now the Nara's think they have some sort of problem with neighbourhood cats fighting in their bushes. Shikamaru's dad actually went out there once and started whacking the bushes with a broom because he thought there were cats...**

**Thanks for the feedback! Much love.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Say It With A Straight Face**

-

**summary**: "Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "

**timeline**: The characters are juniors in high school; I've also lumped Neji, Tenten, and Lee in with the juniors, to make it easier. I've made Temari and Kankuro seniors. A/U

* * *

**Chapter Five**

* * *

The two teenagers ran from Sasuke's garage to his front door, their backpacks held over their heads to protect them from the rain. Sakura shivered and jumped every time the thunder boomed louder and louder, signalling the nearing of the storm as Sasuke dug around under the doormat for the extra key. He finally got the door unlocked and held it open for Sakura. He followed her inside, slapping his hand against the light switch on the wall to give them some relief from the darkness. They were both standing in Sasuke's kitchen, leaking tiny oceans of rainwater on the white tile floor. He threw his backpack unceremoniously into a corner behind a dark wooden breakfast table; Sakura followed his example.

They slipped off their shoes and Sasuke began walking around the house, closing the blinds over the windows.

"The laundry room is the door right behind you," he called out of the living room, "You can use the towels in there to dry off."

"Thanks," she called back, going for the towels. She wrapped herself in a white one and walked into the living room to hand him a dark blue one. He wasn't in there. She stopped, listening for him. There were footsteps coming from upstairs, so she slowly climbed up the beige carpeted stairs, her free hand trailing lightly on the ebony railing. She peeked in a few rooms and found him in the second one.

"Hey," Sakura greeted him, and threw the towel at his face as he turned around.

"Hey," he said back with a sarcastic smile. She watched him rub the towel through his dripping black hair and wrap it around his body. She looked around the room, her green eyes lighting on the bed with a black comforter and the neat desk in the corner, and the bookshelf.

"Is this your room?" she asked, eying all the ebony wood and other dark colors.

"No. My older brother's," he said casually, glancing at a picture frame on the desk with two black haired boys in it.

"Hmm, I didn't know you had an older brother," she commented lightly, walking over to the desk to peer at the picture, "Hm, he's cute. Cuter than you. Is he single?"

"Hmph," he stalked out of the room, his fists clenched in irritation. She kept up with him easily.

"Touchy, aren't you?" She poked him in the arm, "You know I'm kidding, Uchiha. Honestly, I don't even know your brother's name!"

"Pft. He's too old for you anyway."

"How old is he?"

"He's twenty-two."

"Tell me about him?"

Sasuke stopped walking to glare at her in the dark, thunder booming in the distance.

"I just want to know!" she exclaimed, holding up her hands, "I don't have a crush on him or anything! Like I said, I don't even know him."

He shook his head at her in exasperation, "Fine, I'll tell you, but over dinner. It's getting really late."

Sakura watched lightning flash behind the window blinds and listened to rain thud to the ground with the occasional thunder clap. She looked up, meeting his eyes, and nodded, "Sure. I'll help you," she replied, getting up and following him to the kitchen.

* * *

Sasuke took a couple of plates from the ebony wooden cabinets in the kitchen, and Sakura walked around the room. She stepped inside the pantry, looking for something to cook. It was totally bare, except for an empty box of white rice, the meager remains of what must have at one time been a loaf of bread, some cereal, and the box of tea mix, with a box of coffee mix beside it. Sakura rolled her eyes. He was such a guy.

Unremittingly, she went to the refrigerator and yanked open the door. There was a pitcher of water inside, some seaweed, and the crisper was full of tomatoes. Groaning to herself, Sakura closed the refrigerator and opened the freezer. There were about six boxes of frozen pizzas in there. Wow. Sasuke has diet issues. And to think he's always busting her for eating pocky.

Sasuke casually walked up behind her and took a box of pizza out of the freezer, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to have a fridge entirely stocked with tomatoes and microwaveable pizza.

"Is this all you eat?" Sakura asked him incredulously, pointing.

"Uh, yeah, I guess. So?" he asked, shoving one of the pies in the microwave.

"Well, it's not very healthy. And you hypocrite! You're always lecturing me about my pocky when all you have is microwave pizza over here! MSG!" Sakura pouted, folding her arms and sending him her own version of a death glare.

"Tomatoes are still healthier than pocky," Sasuke smirked, "And I eat other stuff too," he said defensively, turning to punch some numbers into the microwave and hiding his face, "I just... ran out of it all. I'm... going to the store tomorrow."

"Uh huh. Sure."

"Really! Geez! Shut up!"

* * *

They sat at the black breakfast table together and polished off some of the tea and microwaveable pizza, listening to the storm outside as it continued to worsen. By nine o' clock, the sky was pitch black outside. The two worked on their physics project for awhile and finished all the parts that didn't require a computer, since computers are unsafe when there's lightning. By eleven though, they'd given up and were ready to go to bed.

Since Sakura was staying the night, Sasuke found her a t-shirt and a smaller pair of shorts of his to wear to bed, and led her to one of the guest rooms so she could change.

Sakura came down the stairs a couple minutes later, ready for bed, but not quite feeling tired enough to actually turn in. Sasuke was in old sweat pants and a t-shirt, sitting on a couch and staring at the television set, even though it wasn't on. He looked bored. Sakura walked over and plopped down next to him.

"You broke your promise," she accused.

That got his attention, "What promise?" he asked blankly.

"That you would tell me about your brother over dinner, but you didn't."

"I never promised," he said defensively, punching the pillow behind him and leaning back on it.

She glared, "Well, I'll tell you about my family then. And then, you have to tell me about your family, so we're even. Ha!"

"Whatever. I already know you live with your mom, who works at the hospital and is never home."

"Well, yeah. She usually sleeps in the hospital beds and usually will just come home on weekends for more clothes. But I'm really proud of her. She said she always wanted to be a surgeon, and now she's one of the best in the region. I can tell she really loves it, even the long hours," Sakura said, smiling a little, "I don't mind that I don't see her so much if she's having fun. I don't mind the responsibility, and she trusts me," her smile darkened a little, "Well, as for my dad, he left us when I was seven. I just remember what he looked like back then. I don't know anything about him, and I don't really care. He wanted to leave, fine." Sasuke studied her face and could tell it really didn't look all that 'fine', but she continued, turning away from him, "You're really lucky to have an older brother. I always wanted one; that's why I wanted to know about your brother. No siblings for me," she stopped talking now and looked at Sasuke expectantly.

He sighed, but started talking anyway, "Just me and my brother live together. He's in art school right now though, but he visits a lot. His name's Itachi," he shrugged, "I guess I really used to idolise him and look up to him, and I still sort of do. I mean, he's my brother, he takes care of me. My parents are overseas right now. My mom's aunt was really sick and she had no one to take care of her, so my parents went. My dad says he really likes it over there, and he might want to move there permanently, but me and Itachi could stay if we want, because Itachi's twenty-two, and in a little over a year I'll be eighteen," he shrugged, "It's just that the colleges are better over here. I know I'm staying." He fell silent.

"Well, that's good," Sakura said, "You can't go moving on me; I'll have no one to pick on." The teasing words were there, but her voice was a little quiet and uncertain.

"Heh," he smirked at her, and she smiled.

Sakura jumped off of the couch, and shivered a little, her body missing the warmth of sitting on the soft cloth with Sasuke's body beside her, "Well, I'm tired. See you in the morning, unless this storm destroys the house in the night," she joked, then leaned over and softly gave him a hug, "Goodnight," she said quietly in his ear, and before he knew it, her warmth was gone, like a spring breeze just brushing you, making you long for more. He sat up and opened his mouth, wanting to say something that would make her stay down there at least a minute longer, before realising she was already gone.

Sasuke grimaced to himself at the emotions spinning around inside of him; they made him feel like he had a stomach ache or something. Moodily, he grabbed a pillow off the couch and jammed it under is head, and closed his eyes.

"What was that Naruto said this was?" he muttered to himself in the dark, holding his stomach with his hands, "Oh, yeah, I'm 'lovesick'."

* * *

**Hmm, that feels too short again. Gah, sorry, guys! The writer's block fairy has been camping out on my desk again, and I really wish someone would tell her to quit making campfires out of my ideas and roasting mashmellows over them, and just tell her she's not welcome!**

**Anyway, thanks for the continued feedback; I don't deserve it. Much love.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Say It With A Straight Face**

-

**summary**: "Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "

**timeline**: The characters are juniors in high school; I've also lumped Neji, Tenten, and Lee in with the juniors, to make it easier. I've made Temari and Kankuro seniors. A/U

* * *

**Chapter Six**

* * *

Sakura rolled over in bed and groaned. The early morning sunlight shone hard on her eyelids until she reluctantly opened her eyes. She forced herself into a sitting position, the dark blue sheets rustling as they pooled around her waist. She rubbed at her green eyes and glanced around the unfamiliar room. For a minute, she wondered exactly where she was, then her mind became a little clearer and she remembered last night. She was at Sasuke's. Sakura yawned and sleepily climbed out of bed and stumbled out of the guest room. Today seemed to be one of those days where only caffeine even _stood_ a chance at waking her up.

Sakura descended the stairs, her hands gripping the black wooden railing before she could trip in her tired haze. She made it downstairs unscathed. From out the windows, which already had the blinds opened, she could see that there were a lot of puddles left over from last night's rain, and the sky remained cloudy and dismal.

_'So... tired... need... coffee...'_

Sakura stumbled into the kitchen and found Sasuke in there, drinking a cup of coffee and sort of staring off into space in a very Sasuke-ish way. His hair was all messed up and he was still wearing his pajamas - he looked like he hadn't woken up more than a few minutes before her.

_'Aw, he looks so cute in the morning, with his hair all tousled...'_ a voice in the back of her mind commented, obviously unaffected by the early hour, or how long they'd stayed up the night before

_'Oh, shut up...' _Sakura muttered back

_'Well! It isn't _my_ fault you're not a morning person!'_

_'Unh...' _Wow, Sakura doesn't even feel like arguing with someone - she must be tired.

Sakura groggily plopped down at the table beside Sasuke and tried to stifle another yawn. Sasuke's eyes flickered to her and he smirked. She looked like she was going to fall asleep right on the table any second. Her usually sparkling green eyes were hazy, her pale pink hair was a mess, and she was still wearing his old t-shirt. And strangely, he thought she looked even prettier. He shook his head and tried to jerk the thoughts away. Actually, he'd been thinking about their conversation from the following night, and the weird, unexplainable feelings, before she'd walked in. He definitely felt like he had a decision to make.

"Morning," she mumbled, running a hand through her hair. Sasuke nodded towards her. "Hey, Sasuke? Can I have some coffee too? To wake me up?" Sakura asked, eyeing his cup on the table.

"You hate coffee."

"So do you."

"Touche."

"Well, I need the caffeine."

A smirk played at the corners of Sasuke's mouth and he shook his head, "Actually, I'm sort of out," he said sheepishly. Sakura gave him a very scary, dead sort of glare.

_'Hey, say this now; it's a great opportunity!'_ some mystery division of his brain informed him.

"But... we could try something else to wake you up," he said quietly. This felt awkward. Stupid voices in his head. Seductive comments just aren't in his hard drive. Sakura pulled herself to sit up straight, a confused look on her face.

"Sasuke, what -

The Uchiha took a deep breath, prayed, and leaned forward.

**_'Come on, do it, DO IT! Now's your chance! No backing out now!' _**the voice instructed him

_'But... I've never kissed a girl.'_

_**'Don't be a baby,'** _his voice scoffed, _**' Haven't you ever heard there's a first time for everything?'**_

_'I don't know how though, alright?'_

_**'Just... think about all those romantic Fanfics you read so much. That'll help! Do what they do!'**_

_'But -_

_**'You're an Uchiha! Uchiha men are not afraid of kissing.'**_

_'I'm not... _afraid_.'_

_**'Then GO!'**_

Sasuke closed his eyes and somehow managed to move his lips forward. Unfortunately, that was the same second that Sakura laid her head on the table to catch some more 'Z's, which ended up with him -cough- kissing the -cough- chair.

Awkweird...

Sakura's eyes blinked open and she sat up straight as she felt something disrupt the air next to her, "Sasuke, what are you doing?" she asked, a weird tone in her voice as she raised an eyebrow. Seriously, the boy was kissing her chair. What would _you_ say?

Sasuke quickly turned his head away from her, feeling the tiniest blush warm his cheeks. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and preoccupied himself with glaring at the chair while Sakura continued to stare at him.

"Were you trying to - _kiss the chair_?" Sakura asked, her eyebrow raising higher.

Yes, Uchiha Sasuke's first kiss was with his kitchen chair. (-takes picture of Sasuke and chair on their first date- Sasuke: Stop it!!)

The Uchiha scowled and shook his head.

Comprehension flickered through Sakura's eyes, "Were you trying to - kiss me?" she guessed. Why else would his face be all pink?

Sasuke scowled again and looked away, but his cheeks flamed red. Yup, the great Uchiha Sasuke is now blushing. Isn't life cruel?

Sakura smiled, "It's okay. You can tell me the truth," she reassured him, keeping her green eyes on his embarrassed looking face.

_**'Do it now, man! Do it! Save your pride!'**_

Sasuke reached a hand up and brought it to Sakura's face. He closed his eyes, leaned in, and softly pressed his lips to hers.

_**'Finally... geez...'**_

Sakura's eyes widened the minute Sasuke touched her. Whoo, she was awake now, alright. Uncertainly, she closed her eyes and slowly put her arms around his neck in response, and he pulled her closer.

Hey, the movies are right; you can feel electricity

It felt too soon as they awkwardly pulled away, trying not to bump each other. Sasuke took her arms from behind his neck and held both her wrists in one hand, like she was a doll. His cheeks still looked pink. Sakura's were flaming red.

"Are you awake now, Sakura?" he asked, unable to hide his teasing grin.

Sakura just kind of nodded slowly, a dazed look in her wide eyes.

A mischievous sort of smirk twitched at his lips, "Good," he whispered in a low, sensual voice, leaning in again... and ruffling up her hair, making her bed head worse.

Sakura rolled her eyes, "You really know how to kill a moment, you know?"

Sasuke chuckled. It was something he found himself doing more and more of around her.

Sakura slyly leaned over when he wasn't looking, and grabbed his coffee cup.

He quickly caught her wrists and smirked, "Nope. Nice try."

"Sasukeeeeeeeeeee," Sakura whined, jutting out her bottom lip and widening her clear, emerald eyes.

Sasuke blinked, phased for a moment as the sight made his mind go blank. Was she doing that on purpose? Damn, that was working. Distracting.

Sakura took off running with the coffee, laughing her special maniacal laugh.

"MWA HA HAH HA HA HA HA!! CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, COPPERS!!" (sorry - I've always wanted to say that)

Sasuke ran into the living room and tackled her gently, but with enough force to stop her. Grinning evilly, he positioned himself over her on the floor, held down her hands, and got his coffee cup back. He very slowly, deliberately gulped down the rest and put the cup up on a table. Sakura rolled her eyes and muttered to herself. _"Didn't really need any stupid coffee...mutter... mutter"_

Smirking to himself, Sasuke bent his head down and kissed Sakura again. She felt like she melted into a puddle between him and the floor when she felt Sasuke's lips. She put one arm behind his neck for support. He gently brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. Sakura could taste the coffee. Yay compromise.

In Sasuke's opinion, the second kiss was a lot easier than the first.

-gong-

-gong-

-gong-

-gong-

-gong-

-gong-

-gong-

-gong-

"Eight o' clock," Sasuke murmured against Sakura's lips.

"Hm..."

Both their eyes shot open and they jerked their heads up from behind the couch simultaneously, like groundhogs.

_'Eight o' clock?'_

_'EIGHT O' CLOCK!!'_

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

"HOLY CRAP!!"

School starts at 8:15. Tardy sweep is in ten minutes.

Grunting, they jumped off the floor and flew up the stairs, practically smacking into each other. Sasuke ran into his room and Sakura slammed the guest room door shut, still screaming. They threw on clothes and fixed themselves in the bathrooms like they were in a movie on fast forward, cursing under their breath. Sasuke hopped down the stairs on one foot, busy putting a shoe on the other foot, and Sakura was running around for her physics book, nearly knocking into anything in her path.

Finally, Sasuke snatched his car keys and they sprinted out the front door together. Outside, Sasuke slipped on the wet concrete and his keys went flying into a puddle. Sakura also slid and fell into Sasuke, which ended up making them both slide off the pavement and into the wet, muddy puddles. They both floundered around in the water for a minute, desperately looking for the keys, but couldn't find them.

"Keys!"

"Ahhh!"

"Dammit!"

Sasuke groaned and pulled Sakura to her feet, and they started to run the mile to the high school, occasionally sliding through puddles and muddy spots.

Panting, out of breath, soaking wet, and caked in mud, Sasuked and Sakura skidded to a stop in front of the school, resting their hands on their knees as they tried to catch their breath. They had to be at least fifteen minutes late. And Kakashi had warned never again. Not good not good not good.

As they caught their breath and thought depressing thoughts about what their pre-cal teacher would do to them, Sakura stared at the building and its parking lot, noticing something, then turned to Sasuke, "-huff- Hey -pant- why is is -huff- so -huff- empty?"

Sasuke stared at the place for a minute with one eyebrow raised, then dead-panned, "-pant- What -huff- day is it?"  
"Yesterday was... oh my God, it's

"Saturday."

"..."

"..."

* * *

**First kiss - eek! I really enjoyed writing that a lot because the way I made Sasuke and Sakura's characters, and it being the first kiss and all, it was kind of awkward and sweeter and more innocent. No French kissing or anything, and seriously, I think everyone gets nervous and I personally don't think you're born knowing how to kiss. Even Sasuke. (Sasuke: Hmph.)**

****

Thanks you all so much for all the reviews and encouragement. I seem to have picked up a lot of new readers since the last chapter, so WELCOME TO THE FAMILY! -old readers shake their heads in the distance, mouthing 'leave while you still can' to the new readers-

**I hope you enjoyed that. Much love.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Say It With A Straight Face**

-

**summary**: "Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "

**timeline**: The characters are juniors in high school; I've also lumped Neji, Tenten, and Lee in with the juniors, to make it easier. I've made Temari and Kankuro seniors. A/U

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

"Hey, guys!" Sakura yelled, running towards Tenten, Ino, Shikamaru, Neji, and Kiba where they all stood just outside the front entrance of the high school on Monday morning, waiting for the bell to ring. The pink haired girl stopped in front of her friends, grinning, as she adjusted the strap of the messenger bag filled with books that was hanging off her shoulder.

"Hey, Sakura!" Ino smiled, looking up from her compact and eyeliner just long enough to examine her friend for a couple of seconds, "Where's Sasuke?" she asked, digging around in her purse for some mascara too. If Sakura didn't know better, she would have sworn that she could hear a sly tone to Ino's voice, but - wait a minute, this is _Ino_.

Sakura's face immediately went bright red, and she dropped her green eyes to the cracked, concrete sidewalk and its chewing guy smeared exterior. She picked at the strap of her bag, which she had a habit of doing when Ino grilled her like that, and said friend smirked. "Um... he's uh... with Naruto today. I think!" the pink haired girl blurted quickly.

"Why?" Tenten asked obliviously, not necessarily in on the drama yet, because her cell phone died that weekend. Tragic. "Doesn't he like always walk with you?" she went on unknowingly, as everyone else dead-panned at the brunette, slapping their foreheads, and Sakura looked about ready to pass out... or spontaneously combust. Or both.

"Male bonding or something. It's October 10 - Naruto's birthday," Sakura managed to say, before dumping her books out of her book bag and throwing it over her head.

"What's wrong with Sakura today? She's a little... jumpy," Tenten whispered to Neji. He arched an eyebrow at Tenten and gave her an incredulous look.

"What?? Am I missing something? Neji?!"

-sigh-

"Oh, here they come." The group turned around to see Naruto running towards them from the parking lot, dragging a very unhappy looking Sasuke behind him as they cut across the tree filled school grounds.

"Hi, guys!" the blonde shouted at the top of his lungs. He dragged Sasuke over to the others, grinning, with a sly glint in his blue eyes, "I AM BIRTHDAY KING!! YOU ALLMUST ADDRESS ME AS KING NARUTO McAWESOME PANTS FOR THE REST OF TODAY, PEASANTS!!" Everyone dead-panned and watched as he giggled excitedly and pulled a scepter and crown out of his back pack, "I. AM. KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!" he cried, jamming the crown on his blond head.

Rock Lee happened to pass them and witness the 'coronation' as he was doing his hourly laps. He stopped in front of Naruto and threw himself to the ground, "Congratulations, Your Majesty!! Consider me, Rock Lee, cool green beast, your loyal servant!!" he shouted, bowing to the ground, ignoring the gum stuck all over the concrete. Ew.

Everyone just sighed or hit their foreheads again. It is way too early in the morning for all this.

Naruto turned to his friends all staring bug-eyed at Lee on the ground, pointed, and grinned, "Now that's how you treat the birthday king!!" he turned to Lee, head held high in the air, "Nice!! Um... here... I knight you! Lord Bushy Brow, under my Ramen Armada!" he yelled, whacking Lee on the head with his scepter.

"Oh, thank you so much, Your Majesty! What an honor! I will be the best ramen knight ever!!" Lee shouted, his eyes brimming over. He raised a fist in the air, "I shall run these laps in your honor, my king! Then I must tell Gai-sensei of my knighthood! Oh, I am sure he will be so proud!!" He bowed again and ran off, screaming "LONG LIVE KING NARUTO McAWESOME PANTS!!"

Tenten and Neji looked at Lee then each other and sighed.

"Well?" Naruto looked at the others expectantly.

"Not. On. Your. Life," Sasuke said flatly.

"Nice try," Sakura smirked.

"If you think I'm bowing for you then you can think again!" Ino said in a threatening tone as she looked for her nail file.

"If you think I'm going to do that..." Shikamaru and Kiba warned.

"Hee, hee," Naruto grinned, scratching the back of his head, "Had to try."

* * *

"Here are your tests back!" Kakashi said brightly, walking into the room with a huge stack of papers that he could barely see over about ten minutes after first period was supposed to have begun. Everyone groaned.

Their teacher started passing back papers, "Great job, Sasuke," Kakashi said, handing him his paper back with a perfect score on it. Sasuke gave Naruto, who was visibly fuming, an I-told-you-so look. Naruto scowled then looked up at Kakashi expectantly. The man dug through the stack of papers for a minute. He glanced at the blond.

"Naruto... uh... I know you didn't cheat," He handed him a paper. "What's with the crown?" Kakashi stage-whispered to Sasuke, glancing at Naruto a little worriedly.

"You don't want to know," Sasuke groaned back.

"How do you know I didn't cheat?" Naruto asked eagerly, "Because I'm so smart? Because I'm too noble to cheat? Because -

"Look at your test, you idiot, and maybe you'll get it," Sasuke smirked, handing him the paper. There were marks all over it and a big, red 'D'.

Naruto sweat-dropped and stared at the test blankly. For five minutes. Sasuke was beginning to think the blond had gone into shock or something. Then the Uzumaki's face lit up into one of those grins only Naruto can do. He pulled out his eraser. Sasuke rolled his eyes as his friend started trying to scrub out the answers and steal the right answers off Sasuke's test while the Uchiha wasn't looking.

Kakashi didn't even look up from his book, "That won't work, Naruto," he said in an amused tone as he heard Sasuke scoff and Naruto start cursing and rub harder, making the eraser squeak, "I wrote you a note on the back," he said, offhandedly pointing to the test.

Naruto glared suspiciously and flipped over the test.

* * *

_'Naruto, I know you, so I sprayed your test with hairspray. That means you can't erase your answers, replace them with Sasuke's, and say I made a mistake.'_

_-Love, Kakashi_

* * *

Naruto groaned and started sweating, Kakashi chuckled into his lovely, little orange book, and Sasuke smirked.

Naruto scowled, giving up on his poor paper and moodily played with his eraser. Sasuke raised an eyebrow and watched as he suddenly grinned and took out a pencil. Honestly, that guy's moods changed like a PMSing girl. The Uchiha watched as Naruto drew half a smiley face on his eraser, and the other half on the other side, as if it was a whole smiley face folded in half.

Naruto flipped the eraser to one side, "Hi, I'm Bob," he said in a squeaky voice, as the eraser.

He flipped it over again, and in a deeper voice, "And I'm Todd."

-flip-

"Bob!"

-flip-

"Todd!

-flip-

"Bob!

-flip-

"Todd!"

"Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-Bob-Todd-

"What the hell?!" Sasuke muttered, then grabbed the eraser and chucked it off the desk.

Naruto jumped up, knocking his chair into the guy sitting behind him, and ran to his eraser on the ground. He threw himself to the floor and knelt in front of the eraser, "WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?! Why must the good die young?! No!! Bob!! Todd!! Can you hear me, my sons?! Don't go into the light!!"Naruto sobbed, cupping his hands around his eraser.

Okay, this is all happening right at the front of the classroom, and everyone is just staring, a little scared.

* * *

"Class!!" Kurenai shouted, gripping the sides of her desk as she tried to earn back the attention of her once again sleeping physics class.

All that could be heard was the assorted snoring of her disinterested teenagers.

"-wham!- WAKE UP, PEOPLE!!" Kurenai shouted, whacking the desk of the closest student with a ruler as hard as she could. The ruler broke in half. Poor student.

"Aah!!" Everyone's awake now.

"Good," Kurenai smirked evilly, playing with the one half of ruler in her hands as she paced back and forth in front of her groggy class. Some kids shifted uneasily in their seats and glanced at each other with scared looks. The only time Kurenai paced and did the scary evil laughter thing was when something bad was going to happen, like a pop test.

"...Kiba," Kurenai grinned sweetly, pointing her half of the ruler at the poor boy, almost giving his nose a splinter as she advanced on him, "Tell me how far you and Choji have gotten with your open ended physics project."

Kiba squirmed under her intense stare and the rest of the class's gawking eyes. He glared darkly at Choji a minute, then muttered, "Er, we really... haven't gotten quite... started... yet. Sorry."

Kurenai's rosy colored eyes narrowed, "Kiba, Choji, you realize this is due on Friday, experiment, presentation, report, and rough copies, at the beginning of my class, right?" Kiba swore under his breath and Choji dropped the bag of potato chips hidden under his desk and paled. Kurenai smiled another sweet smile, "I recommend you get started, gentlemen. I give no extensions."

She walked back to the front of the class, tucking a stray strand of wavy, dark hair behind her ear as she scanned the class for a new victim. Nearly everyone flinched.

Kurenai smiled, "Sakura. Tell me, how are you and Sasuke doing?"

Sakura's head shot up from the Fanfiction notebook she'd been sneakily reading in her lap, a shocked look in her eyes, "W-what did you just say, Sensei?" _'Did I just hear what I thought I heard?'_

"You and Sasuke's project. How are you doing on it?"

"Oh," Sakura flushed. (And that, girls and boys, is why you pay attention in class, so you don't mix up your crush and your science project with what your teacher is talking about.) The girl's eyes flashed to Sasuke, who was silently looking down at his lap, and went an even brighter red. She managed to smile back at her teacher though, "We've already picked out our topic, written an outline, planned out an experiment, written a rough draft to about that far and cross referenced it with text evidence cited from research books," Sakura replied, trying to replay only the right parts of her weekend that answered the question.

"Really?" Kurenai said, sounding impressed. She smirked and glanced at the rest of the class who were staring all slack-jawed, "You all should make such an effort in this class," she grinned at Sakura and Sasuke, "Excellent, you two. My two best students. I knew it - you make a great pair!"

Sasuke and Sakura both went red in the face. They glanced at each other and quickly looked away, not speaking.

* * *

Sakura slipped into an empty seat in social studies, nearly missing the bell from stalling on her way out of physics so she wouldn't bump into a certain _someone _at their lockers. Of course, with her luck, Sasuke'd had the same idea, and they ended up getting left alone in the classroom for a while, and Kurenai started gushing about what an excellent partnership they were again. That, in turn, caused them to both flee the classroom, and end up literally bumping into each other at their lockers and scattering books and literature homework all over the hallway. The point is, it was a mess, and Sakura felt like it had left her with an especially huge, unforgiving headache, as she sank into a free chair towards the back of the room.

She rested her chin on her arms, yawned, and settled in on a good, long, note-taking-only lecture on World War II and its impacts on the economy, or something like that - she couldn't really read the board from way back here.

_'Note to self - Visit the optometrist... or offer Ibiki-sensei penmanship lessons.'_

"REVIEW!! What finally convinced Great Britain to join the war?!" Ibiki threw at a red haired boy with glasses in the front row. He glared, pointing a scarred finger at him, "WELL?!" the teacher barked. The boy started shaking and sweat beaded up on his forehead so much that his glasses kept sliding almost right off his nose.

"Uh... I, uh..."

"Come on, boy!" Ibiki roared, grabbing the boy's desk and leaning over to look him straight in the eye. The guy squeaked a little and scooted back in his chair, away from the crazy, bald, mutilated teacher. Well, wouldn't you too?

"WELL?!"

"I-I -gulp- d-don't know, s-s-s-sir."

"You don't know?! RUBBISH!!"

Sakura snickered and turned away from the sight of her teacher terrifying the first four rows of the classroom. As much as she loved seeing guys practically wet their pants in fear (okay, ew), she decided to scan the room for something more worthy of paying attention to. I mean seriously, Ibiki threw a desk out the window everyday before campus security ran in and dragged him out by his arms while he ranted about 'the Man' - nothing new there. Sakura's green eyes lit up and she sat up straighter as her sights happened to fall on Naruto and Hinata sitting where the three of them all normally sat together, when she wasn't late. She sat up straighter and grinned while she watched her two friends. Interesting.

As far as Sakura could tell, from that far away, Naruto was loud-whispering, for someone like Naruto simply can't whisper quietl, to Hinata about how he was birthday king. Sakura rolled her eyes.

_'That idiot. He's never going to get a girlfriend if he keeps pulling stuff like that,' _she thought irritably, tapping her fingers against the faux wood desk top. But wow, Hinata would probably get those little hearts for eyes even if he only spoke Dutch. I mean, he's bragging about a stupid _crown _made of plastic, gold paint, and... plastic, and the Hyuga's face was already about past a 7 on the 'How Red Can You Go?' scale. Tomatoes score a 6.5.

Sakura zoned out and rested her chin by propping it up with her elbow, idly running her fingers through her pink locks. She watched Naruto and Hinata talk all period, up to the point that Naruto smiled at her and leaned a little closer, and Hinata promptly fell over in her chair.

Sakura grinned to herself,_' They're my new favorite couple!'_ she thought gleefully_, 'Neji and Tenten are no fun - they've been together since 9th grade. Naruto and Hinata are so cute,'_ she sighed_, 'I kind of wish Naruto would get a clue though. That's a little expected though, I guess. I mean, Kiba accidentally sent a him a carbon copy of the invites to the surprise party we're throwing Naruto tonight, and when he asked us about it we managed to convince him he was dreaming...'_

* * *

"ATTENTION, MY YOUTHFUL STUDENTS!!" Gai shouted in gym class, "TODAY, MY WONDERFUL STUDENT BURSTING WITH YOUTHFULNESS, MY VERY SON THROUGH YOUTH, LEE, HAS INFORMED ME OF SOMETHING!!" Lee winked and gave a shiny thumbs up in the background, "IT IS NARUTO'S BIRTHDAY!! OH, NARUTO, THOUGH SOME SAY PASSING BIRTHDAYS ARE A SIGN OF LOSING YOUR YOUTHFULNESS TO AGE, I, GAI-SENSEI, GURU OF YOUTH, SAY NAY - IT IS ONLY THE BEGINNING OF OUR YOUTHFUL LIVES!! WHY, JUST LOOK AT ME!!" he struck the nice-guy pose, "MAY YOU CONTINUE TO GROW MORE BURSTING WITH YOUTH EVERY SECOND!!"

"NAY, MASTER, EVERY NANO SECOND!!" Lee cried, pumping his fist in the air as tears streamed out of his eyes. They finished grandly with identical flashing smiles and a thumps up.

Everyone sort of dead-panned at all the weirdness. Naruto grinned, "Soooo, does that mean I can pick what we do today?" he asked in his 'pretty please' voice.

"Yeah, sure, why not?" Gai agreed, flipping his hand nonchalantly. "NOW, I'M OFF TO CHALLENGE MY RIVAL!! KAKASHI!!" The kids in gym could swear they heard the sound of a door in the 11th grade math wing slam shut and footsteps running away.

"KAKASHI!!" Gai hollered, and took off running with Lee at his heels, giggling madly.

Naruto grinned, "Free day!!" he shouted, grabbing a basketball and chucking it at Sasuke's head, who scowled and barely managed to duck, "And you girls!" the blond shouted again over the din of kids starting to run around like the crazy, unsupervised idiots that they were, "Go put on some mini-skirts!!" he leered, spinning another basketball in his hands.

-SIZZLE-

"Uh... why are you all looking at me like that??"

-BLOOD LUST-

"Hey, w-what are you doing?! Don't come any closer!!

-GRRRR-

"Stay back!! I'M ARMED!!" -holds basketball in front of his face and shrieks like a girl-

-EVIL GRIN-

"OH, MY GOD! SASUKEEEEEEEEEEEE!! HELP!!"

"Huh? Did you just hear some - thing?" Sasuke asked Shikamaru and Neji in one of those halting, wooden, bad-acting voices, "Oh well, I guess I will just leave and walk to the bath - room. Way over here," he called out, dropping the basketball.

"DAMN YOU, SASUKE!!"

The sound of knuckles cracking drowned out his curse.

"U-UH... STAY BACK!! NOOO!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!  
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

Once Naruto was taken care of -cough- beat into bloody remains and left to fester under the bleachers and hanging upside down from the basketball rim by his shoe laces, Tenten grabbed Sakura by the wrist and dragged her to the volleyball net.

The brunette spun around and faced the pink haired girl who had a look that was somewhere between deep disapproval and 'You know I suck at sports; let me goof off, not play a freaking game of volleyball' on her face. Tenten grabbed a shiny, white volleyball out of a bin and held it in front of her face innocently as she made her best puppy dog face.

"No."

"Pwease, Sakura?"

"No."

"Pweeeeeeeeeease??" She batted her eyelashes ridiculously for good measure.

Said pink haired girl glared for a minute, then pouted. "Fine," she muttered darkly, snatching the ball out of a triumphantly smirking Tenten's hands, and accidentally let it slip off her fingers and fly halfway across the gym.

"But Hinata has to play too!" she yelled as she ran off to retrieve the ball.

* * *

Five minutes later, all three girls were setting the ball across the net, back and forth to each other.

"So, -thump of ball hitting Sakura in the head for the twentieth time- Hinata, what was Naruto telling you in Ibiki's?" Sakura asked innocently, giving the ball a dirty look before tossing it cautiously to Tenten, who hit it towards Hinata.

Hinata, who's A) pretty good at volleyball and B) aware of Sakura's _brilliant _lack of balance and coordination, went with the safe response... SPIKE THE BALL INTO SAKURA AND RUN.

As planned, Sakura dropped like a metal weight off the leaning tower of Pisa (seriously, Galileo should have been more careful - I mean, you could hit someone doing that) and Tenten started to help her up. Hinata ran for the locker rooms, so Tenten kind of... dropped Sakura (ow) and ran after the Hyuga.

Unfortunately for Hinata, her calculations didn't include Tenten's awesome sprinting skills, so she's caught.

"Okay, whatever happened, spill it," Tenten drawled calmly, walking Hinata back to their volleyball game and improvising her fingers as hand cuffs.

"HINATA!!" Sakura screamed angrily, towering above them with her face hidden in shadow, face red and temple vain throbbing as she cracked her knuckles ominously, "WHAT THE F-

"What'd he tell you?" Tenten cut Sakura off, totally ignoring the scary aura and whacking said pink-haired girl calmly on the head (and making her fall again) to shut her up.

"U-u-u-u-uh..." Hinata stuttered, her face going absolutely purple and her pale eyes darting around the room as she nervously twisted a lock of black hair from her pony tail around her finger. Tenten waited patiently and Sakura moaned and got up off the floor, rubbing her head.

"H-h-h-he j-just t-t-told me it w-was his b-birthday," Hinata stuttered out.

"_And...?_"

"H-h-h-h-h-he... a-asked m-me if... _today was a good day to go out to the movies together_!" Hinata squeaked, rushing the last part and altogether breaking the 'How Red Can You Go?' scale with her super blushing skills. Aw, man - that thing had no insurance!

"..."

"G-g-guys?"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!" they quite literally exploded, then without hesitation, jumped on Hinata, practically smothering her in a hug.

"OH MY GOD!!"

"THAT IDIOT FINALLY WIZENED UP!!"

"IT'S A BIRTHDAY MIRACLE!!"

"OMG - WHEN'S YOUR DATE?! WE CAN DO YOUR MAKE-UP AND STEAL THAT MINI-SKIRT INO BOUGHT LAST WEEK!!"

"WHEN'S THE WEDDING?!"

"HINATA!! I CAN BE YOUR BRIDE'S MAID, RIGHT?!"

"AH!! I CAN TOTALLY SEE YOUR DRESS ALREADY!!"

"YES!! BUT FIRST - YOUR DATE!!"

"YEAH, WHAT'D YOU TELL HIM?!"

Hinata sighed and looked down at her bright, white running shoes, "T-there is no d-date. I-I-I... oh, I f-fainted!" she wailed, turning around and starting to bang her head against the locker room door, muttering about her stupidity.

Sakura and Tenten quickly grabbed her hands and pulled her away from the door, before she gave herself a concussion. The patted her on the back sympathetically as the dark haired girl hid her face in her hands.

"Aw, don't worry, sweetie."

"Yeah, just leave it to Auntie Sakura and Auntie Tenten. We'll get your lovestruck idiot to ask again," Sakura grinned, the shadow of one of her evil smiles on her face as Tenten smirked and cracked her knuckles in the background.

Hinata went pale, "No! R-really, d-don't push him, g-guys. Promise m-me y-y-you won't. Please? I-I'd r-really want h-him to a-ask o-o-on his own."

"Aw, just kill our fun why don't you?"

"Does this mean the wedding's off?"

"Man, does this mean no little brunette Uzumakis running around?"

-thud-

"Hey, she fainted again." Sakura gave Tenten a blank look. "What? What'd I say?!"

"Tennie, you're really bugging me today. You know that?"

* * *

A few periods later, Sasuke and Naruto were sitting in boys' health class, both talking to try drowning out Jiraya's very 'enthusiastic' lesson and keep their minds pure. Of course, Naruto was doing all the talking, and Sasuke was only paying attention to him because it was either that or Jiraya's lesson on... never mind.

"Guess what, teme?"

"Hn."

"Do you even care?"

"Hn."

"Whatever, you bastard. Anyway, I asked Hinata to go to the movies with me today! I think I like her. You know - thatway. I used to love Sakura, but Hinata's just so much better for me, _and _she doesn't even beat me up! Don't you think, teme?"

"Hn... wait, _what _about Sakura?!"

"Oh, you didn't know, teme? Before you even met her on FanFunction or whatever, she used to some over to my house and we'd make out... and sometimes do a little more-

"..."

"-_struggling to breathe as he tries to pry Sasuke's hands off his throat-_ God, _-huff- _Sasuke _-wheeze-_ can't you even _-cough-_ take a joke?!"

Said dark haired boy glared, before slowly releasing the blond.

Naruto scowled and rubbed his neck, gasping in air. Once he was over it though, he leaned over and leered at Sasuke, "Aww! Is wittle Sasuke-kins all overprotective of his new wittle girlfwiend?" Naruto teased, drawing little hearts in the air with his index fingers.

"Shut up."

"So are your sons going to have pink hair?"

"Shut up! She's not even my girlfriend! We're hardly even just friends! Have you _seen_ us fighting? She's annoying!"

"I wasn't under the impression that you two were 'just friends' when you called me all stupid and giddy at freaking eight in the morning to tell me you kissed her," Naruto said, grinning slyly.

"... I was not 'giddy'."

"You were so giddy."

"Was I?"

"Uh huh."

"-scoff- Well, not as giddy as you over your precious Hinata a minute ago."

"-sigh- Yeah, she's awesome."

"Hn."

"Talk like a normal person, will you? Ask me when my date is."

"Hn."

"_Ask_."

"Hn."

"Giddy. Giddy-giddy-giddy-giddy-

"Shut up already! Fine, when's your date, you idiot?"

"Well, she kind of fainted after I told her," Naruto smiled sheepishly. His eyebrows pulled together worriedly, "What am I supposed to do, Sasuke? You have experience with girls now, you know, like Sakura. So give me some of your wisdom, do I, like, ask her again?"

"Uh-

"AHAAAAAAAA!!" Jiraya shouted, coming up behind them and clamping a hand on each of their shoulders, making them flinch, "GOTCHA!!" he crossed his arms and glanced down at both boys through narrowed, black eyes, "You kids are lucky this isn't any other class but mine, or you'd be in trouble for talking and disrupting my perfectly wonderful lecture. But this is a relationship issue! And I, Jiraya, am the ultimate lady's man!" he shouted, grinning widely and throwing a hand in the air very dramatically.

Blank stares from the class.

"Uh, yeah, just, ask her out again, okay kid?" Jiraya muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Heh, thanks, Pervy S- , I mean, Jiraya-sensei," Naruto grinned.

"Yeah, yeah," their gray-haired teacher waved a hand through the air nonchalantly, "But I think I'll finish up my lesson back here, so I know you two guys are paying attention," Jiraya smirked evilly as they both turned green, their eyes wide. The man stood in the aisle right between Sasuke and Naruto's desks. He cleared his throat and continued loudly, "And then, you just-

"Whoa, Sasuke, you look like you're gonna faint!"

Said Uchiha's very red face falls to the desk, muttering about his innocence being destroyed and a few choice swear words.

"There's a test on this, kids, so start memorising this! Bwa ha ha!"

The entire class groaned.

* * *

After their eighth and final period, Sasuke and Naruto were walking out of the fine arts hall together from the band hall and theatre class stage, when Naruto happened to spot Hinata stumbling out of the choir practice room. Naruto's face perked up, and he grinned.

"Later, bastard! I'm getting me a date!" the blond yelled, running towards Hinata at top speed. Luckily, he stopped before he ran into her or did something stupid like that. Sasuke smirked as he watched his best friend sling an arm around Hinata's shoulders and take her book bag for her, smiling like a normal person for once. Let's just say it was a good thing he took her bag, because Hinata's knees already looked like they were going to buckle any second even without the extra weight. Sasuke watched them leave, miraculously, without any episodes and/or fainting spells.

_'Wow, the idiot really might be growing up,'_ he thought to himself_, 'Well, at least now we can set up that stupid surprise party for him without having to worry about him walking in on us.' _Smirking a little, he repositioned the book bag on his shoulders and turned around to head for his locker... and bumping into none other than Sakura, coming out of the art classroom. Sasuke's face immediately flushed, as did Sakura's.

_'W-what?_ _Wh-when did she switch to art?!'_ his mind stuttered at him, feeling very flustered.

They both shyly looked the other way, then headed in opposite directions to their lockers, forgetting, again, that they would just meet there again anyway.

* * *

Ten o' clock at night and a group of seriously pissed, very irritable teens were lying around Naruto's apartment, waiting for him and Hinata to get back from the movies. They'd all worked their butts off, trying to decorate as fast as possible so they could surprise Naruto when he came home, but so far they'd been waiting for SIX HOURS. Everyone just sort of laid on the floor now, bored out of their skulls and really hungry for cake they couldn't eat yet. Some of the orange crepe paper streamers were tearing and falling pathetically to the floor on one side. Balloons that had lost their helium were starting to fall back to the floor, looking all flat. There was even a small puddle of liquid chocolate in the kitchen, because the ice cream had started melting until Neji had the common sense to stuff it back in the freezer. The candles on the cake and on the table had burned down and hardened into little blue and orange and white lakes of wax. Can you say atmosphere of utter boredom and pathetic-ness?

Ino grunted and punched the pillow on the couch she was lying on, glaring irritably at everyone else. Stupid Shino, being all calm and... calm, and Kiba, with the dog. Man, they just pissed her off for some reason. And Lee, still standing at attention by the front door and occasionally throwing flower petals from only God knows where. He seriously believes he's a Ramen Knight? Idiot. And Shikamaru, man that guy pissed her off, sitting there playing chess by himself - looking all hott... and... hott. He can't at least play with Sakura? Show off. Jeez. And Sakura was like totally pissing her off the most. Sasuke too. They were still acting all retarded, blushing and being stiff and not talking to each other, and just being all _awkward_. It just burned Ino up. After Saturday, shouldn't they be like making out on the couch and actually _having fun _because they were together, or some romantic crap like that? Man, stupid, shy, annoying, weird people. And then Neji and Tenten, sitting there all balanced... and... couple-ish. Classic 'girl leans her head on guy's shoulder and guy wraps his arm around her and whispers to her' deal. It totally made her want to roll her eyes or kick them out of the rocking chair or SOMETHING. Why is this so freaking boring?!

Please excuse Ino - sounds like _somebody's _PMSing. But the point is that right now everyone feels more like lending a hand in Naruto's death than celebrating his birth.

Suddenly, the lock on the door clicked, and the front door swung open, revealing Naruto grinning and Hinata looking like she wanted nothing more than for the bag of popcorn currently being constricted by her arms to be big enough to hide behind.

"I-I-I h-had a r-r-r-really n-nice time tonight, N-naruto," Hinata smiled shyly, giving him a very cute, awkward, one-armed hug (popcorn being squeezed to death by the other arm, people), which Naruto returned enthusiastically.

"SURPRISE!!" Lee screamed, throwing a whole bucket of petals, again, no one knows where from, and taking off running out the front door, screaming.

"Yeah, happy birthday," a few people groaned weakly from the floor, lifting themselves up half-heartedly.

"God, I'm tired."

"Can we have cake now?"

Naruto looked up, seeing the surprise party for the first time, "Oh, hey, guys. Is this some sort of bingo party in my house? If so, it's just like this dream I had last night, where we were playing in the Atlantic Ocean and then this shark got my bingo card and started-

"It's a surprise party, idiot! And we just waited for you for SIX HOURS!!" everyone exploded.

"..._oooooooooooooooooh_..."

"HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GO SEE A STUPID MOVIE?!"

"Oh, chill out, guys. Can't a guy go out with his girlfriend and watch _Batman_?" Naruto retorted, putting an arm around Hinata's waist and pulling her closer.

"G-g-g-g-girlfriend?" Hinata stuttered.

"Yeah," Naruto answered easily, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Surprisingly, Hinata didn't even faint.

"... so you saw _Batman_?"

* * *

**Argh! -rips fingernails furiously into desk and through papers- This felt like such a filler! I wanted to give Naruto and Hinata their moment, but it wound up feeling random. Gah, I won't stray from the Sasuke and Sakura again. Although, I suppose I can argue that it really was alright, due to the emotional context, but whatever.**

**The eraser scene was for Michaelle, because we actually did that in our homeroom period last year (I was Sasuke and she was Naruto, of course.) I am soooo sad - she's moving away!! -cries-**

**Hapiness! This chapter is my longest yet! Over 6,000 words!**

**Next chapter we shall head back to Sasuke and Sakura, and see what's wrong with them. Bet you guys thought it was all peaches and cream from here on out. This chapter was a little Naruto and Hinata action for you all, and a salute to our favorite knucklehead's birthday. Like I said, next chapter is back to the SasuSaku, and please excuse my slow updating. **

**Thanks for your feedback. Much love.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Listen up, readers**

Hey, this is just a little note. This weekend (the 22- 23rd of November) I just went through the story and did some major editing. The most change was done to chapter five, which was pretty much entirely re-done. Still, you really should go back and re-read it all; it'll make more sense when later chapters come out. If you read the news column on my profile page, you'll see that marching season is over, so I'm back to working on my Fanfiction and giving this story the attention it deserves. I've been working on chapter eight; I think it can be up maybe before this coming Wednesday, the 26th, but more likely it will be up the weekend after. I really apologise for so much time passing before me getting chapter eight up. Please forgive me; I could never forget you all or this story.

Thanks for listening!

So remember:

-reread if you have time - there are a lot of changes

-ideally, give me some feedback and let me know how you like the changes

-chapter eight deadline: November 25 to December 2 - one week

-have a great Thanksgiving break if you celebrate that!

Much love,

Coraline


	9. Chapter 9

**Say It With A Straight Face**

-

**summary**: "Okay, Sasuke, here's how you can prove you don't like Sakura. Say 'I don't like Sakura' five times with a straight face!" "I don't -twitch- like Sakura -smirk-" "HA! YOU DO!" "SHUT UP! I JUST... HAD TO SNEEZE!" Sure. Sequel to "Just Press 'Send' "

**timeline**: The characters are juniors in high school; I've also lumped Neji, Tenten, and Lee in with the juniors, to make it easier. I've made Temari and Kankuro seniors. A/U

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

* * *

It was Friday afternoon in the school cafeteria. The first lunch which was right after fourth period, for the juniors, was going on. The din was even louder and crazier than normal with kids letting out that 'End Of The Week' energy and shouting weekend plans to each other. The mood was especially exciting because later that night was going to be the last big football game of the year before the homecoming game, and at least nine-tenths of the school had to be going. Colourful fliers and stray strands from pom poms in school colours littered the floor, turning it into a sort of chaotic rainbow underfoot, just waiting to be slipped on. Hello, lawsuit. The student body themselves were also contributing to the colourful atmosphere, most of them having painted their faces and dyed their hair with the temporary stuff. Yes, today everyone seemed to be doing more talking than eating, thus, general confusion and teachers hiding in the teacher's lounge from teens too hyped up on churros and school spirit.

In the lunch line to the immediate left of all the action, Naruto and Sasuke were elbowing their way through teenagers, trying to get to some trays. Naruto managed to grab one and cheerfully walked through the line, piling his tray with junk food. Sasuke trailed behind him, clutching nothing but a plastic water bottle and scowling darkly at everything from the kids decked out in school spirit shirts and football jersies in honour of the game, to the poor, innocent rows of different flavored yogurt lined up neatly by the cash register.

Naruto rolled his eyes - he didn't even have to look behind him to know that his best friend was sulking.

"Oh, get over it, Sasuke. You're such a baby, man. You don't get picked to march at one stupid half time show and you have to turn into Mr. Anti-Social. Get over it, man," Naruto complained, throwing three packs of Twinkies and a doughnut onto his mountain of junk food, "I don't even get why you like marching band. Don't your feet like, get sore? And it's football where you get the ladies, not _'the woodwind section'_."

"Shut up," Sasuke growled, bashing Naruto in the head with the plastic water bottle, "It matters to me. It'll always be the one game I didn't march at. Always there. Mocking me," he shook his head in horror, "Stupid Anko. Just had to go and get more saxophone players," he muttered darkly, turning to glare at the poor, terrified looking student council girl behind the register he was paying at.

Naruto raised an eyebrow as they walked back into the main body of the cafeteria to join Neji and Shikamaru, "Uh, aren't the new saxophone players _your _fault, teme? I mean, didn't you go complain to that crazy band director lady that totally scares me, so much that she got those senior kids and kicked your fangirls out?"

"..."

"And they're like seniors and from the higher band and _awesome_, so they totally kicked your ass!"

"..."

"Seriously! It is like _sooooooooooooooooo_ you fault! It couldn't be any less your fault! I mean-

"Naruto..."

"Yeah?"

"Shut the hell up."

"... well, still, football has to get more girls than band."

"In case you haven't noticed, idiot, I HATE MY FANGIRLS. I DON'T WANT MORE." Naruto grinned and muttered something about him already having Sakura anyway, but the Uchiha ignored it. He's been getting cracks like this from the ramen loving idiot since that fateful last weekend... "Besides, band is for smarter, talented, non-idiot guys like me. I mean, how stereotypical is football? You don't even need a brain. Now band takes brains. Which I have."

"... right. -cough- _freak_ -cough- Hey, wait, what does 'steriotypical' mean?"

Luckily, before Sasuke's insanely bad mood caused him to start trying to kill Naruto with his water bottle again, he noticed that they weren't walking towards the guys' usual table. It was a different table. With girls.

Cue dramatic music, please.

Naruto grinned and easily slid into the empty seat beside Hinata, draping an arm around her waist as she turned bright red and nearly choked on her bottle of green tea. Sasuke, however, remained standing in front of the table, staring at it like it was some kind of alien planet.

"Why are we here?" he hissed at Naruto, glaring at the guys all sitting there with girls in between them, like it _didn't matter_.

"Well, teme, there are now more of us who are couples than singles, and those of us who are happily taken want to sit with our girlfriends, and majority rules, we being majority, so our spot changed," Naruto explained calmly, pulling Hinata closer, oblivious to her still gagging on her tea, and pointing to Tenten giggling and shoving food into Neji's mouth, "Got a problem with that, teme?" Naruto asked innocently, looking up to make eye contact with his friend.

Sasuke's right eye twitched, "I'm sitting somewhere else," he muttered darkly to himself, turning away with his water bottle.

"Well, be prepared to sit with your fangirls, Sasuke, because that's the only other spot available," Naruto smirked triumphantly, knowing just who won that row. He jerked a thumb towards a table about fifteen metres away, where half a dozen giggling girls had set up a seat and were staring right back at him, rather suggestively. Shudder. The rest of the cafeteria was packed. Plenty of kids were sharing seats, and there were even guys who had to stand in the aisles, blocking traffic and just making everything more chaotic.

"Attaboy, Sasuke! Don't be anti-social!" Naruto chirped cheerfully, slapping him on the back and laughing as the Uchiha dragged himself back, muttering darkly to himself. Naruto politely patted the seat next to him, the only empty seat, which also 'happened' to be next to Sakura. Sasuke glared as scarily as he possible could at the innocent look pasted on Naruto's face; he is so obviously being set up.

Sakura flinched as she felt him sit beside her, but otherwise gave no sign that she'd noticed him at all, and he did the same, manoeuvring in his seat so that their backs were to each other. Naruto grinned, absolutely cracking up inside as he watched his friends be so awkward with each other.

That lunch period Sasuke and Sakura were unusually quiet, despite the constant, even louder than usual chatter of the two meddling blonds on either side of them. It was also the shortest lunch they'd ever had. Sakura wolfed down her sandwich and Sasuke chugged his water bottle. They both jumped up and hurriedly excused themselves, before running to their next class, which they had separate. All this before Naruto even had enough time to finish a second Twinkie. Everyone stared after the frantically running teens, their eyes wide with surprise.

Ino watched them leave over her shoulder, until she was sure they were out the cafeteria doors,"Alright, time to get down to business, now that they're gone," she stood up, slapping her hands on the table and flipping her long, blonde braid back over her shoulder dramatically.

"Do _we _have to help?" Shikamaru groaned.

"All you have to do is not tell Sasuke. Or Sakura!" Ino snapped, leaning over the table, knocking over Hinata's bottle of green tea, and got right in his face, pointing a sharp, manicured nail between his eyes threateningly.

"So I keep my mouth shut and allow you to embarrass my friends and or make them do something against their will that will most likely humiliate or really piss them off?"

"Uh, yeah. Jeez, you make it sound so immoral."

"Whatever. Like I care. I'm in."

"Back to business then," Tenten said, rolling her eyes as Shikamaru laid his head on the table for a nap and Ino started shaking him by the front of his shirt, "So tonight?"

"Tonight."

"Neji, can you make the reservations, and Hinata, we need to borrow your car."

"O-okay."

"Sure."

"I changed my mind. Shika, take off right after school and buy some flowers."

"z-z-z-z-z-z"

"SHIKA?!"

"I heard you, damnit!"

"Excellent. Me and Ino will take care of the rest," Naruto grinned, "By the end of tonight, those two will be together!"

* * *

Ino walked into English class, about a second after the bell had rung, since all their evil planning had held them up. She quickly picked out where Sakura was sitting - right in the middle of the front row; her favourite spot that she managed to snag since she'd been so early to English. Ino looked to the right of her friend, where a scrawny guy with slicked back hair and glasses was punching digits into an electric PDA. She snorted to herself, then flipped her braid back over her shoulder and walked toward the guy's desk, her three inch, purple stilettos clicking on the tile floor.

"Hey," she smiled brilliantly, resting one arm on the desk and playing with her braid again, "Would it be okay if I sat here?" The guy gulped.

"U-uh, s-sure!"

"Thanks," Ino smiled sweetly again, and once the guy was stumbling away and nearly dropping his things, she rolled her eyes and took her seat next to Sakura. Said pink-haired girl had her nose buried in a familiar, shiny blue book - Christine, another Stephen King book. Ino made a mental note to disconnect her phone tonight. It was obvious to her that Sakura was also reading so that Ino wouldn't get a chance to talk to her, like she always did. The blonde haired girl didn't even talk to the girl next to her, just took the end of her ponytail and messed around with her split ends. She smirked to herself as she caught Sakura keep shooting looks at her from the corner of her eye, obviously trying to figure out why her meddling best friend wasn't interrogating her like the FBI yet, like she usually did.

"Books away, class!" Asuma sang out, shooting a look at Sakura, as he walked through the door with a fresh stack of Zerox-ed papers that still smelled like warm ink balanced in his arms.

The class turned their direct attention to him right away for once, curious about the packets of paper he was dumping on the overhead projector, raising a bit of dust as he set the heavy packets down.

"These first few weeks of school, we've been refining the grammar skills you all have been learning your entire lives," Asuma began, fingering a box of Tic Tacs in his pants pocket, " the rest of this semester, will be grammar free," a very loud cheer from the students, whose lives had been plagued by that hell-spawn subject for long enough, "But it will also be nothing but grammar!" here he was met with blank stares. Asuma grinned to himself through a mouthful of mints, swallowed, "The rest of the semester, all twelve weeks left, and maybe even a majority of the second semester, if we all enjoy this project enough and I get enough good results before winter break, will be spent on a huge creative writing project. It will be worth four-fifths of your grade, so I expect a lot of effort, especially because this is my AP class" the dark-haired man paused, taking in the dead silence and intense atmosphere

"You all are going to be writing a novel. Anything goes, as long as it has appropriate themes, nothing above PG-13, please. Otherwise, I won't stifle your creativity with any other rules. It's open ended. NO plagiarism; you all are better than that. And trust me, I will know if you copy from other sources. Otherwise, write whatever you want. Make it rhyme for all I care! It can be a love story, sci fi, fairy tale, historical fiction, drama, horror, mystery," he ticked off on his fingers, "Well, the details are in these packets" the class blanched as he patted the huge stack of papers and began separating the stapled packets to hand out, "Just read em, sign em, and we can get started! We'll be working on this in class instead of grammar or other things you've done in your past literature classes. I'll allow you to bring laptops in."

He began passing out the papers and the class began eagerly chattering to one another.

Sakura whipped around to face Ino, her face lit up in excitement and forgetting that she was supposed to be wary of this conversation.

"Oh, wow! Ino! How awesome is this! Oh, gosh, this project was like made for me!" she started gushing, letting her Christine book fall off of her lap and fall on top of her backpack, making the spine crack, but she didn't notice, "What are you going to write about? I'm writing a love story for sure!"

"I know, this is amazing! I was thinking I could do something sci-fi!"

"Oh, that would be awesome! And there would be a romance angle of course?"

"Psh, given! Like alien falls in love with ruggedly handsome earth hunter, or vampire goes for loving the girl instead of eating her."

"Well the alien thing is so old, like 1985, and the vampire-human thing has so been exhausted since Twilight, but the vampire one is totally cute - you could so be forgiven for being cliche on that."

"Agreed. So tell me about your romance. Setting in a cute, northern coast town, or like Laura Ingalls plain?

"Coast town. Pioneering is gross."

"And is it going to be like a Fanfiction thing, but you just change the names and stuff?"

"Chyeah."

"And what's going on with you and Sasuke?"

"I'm afraid he doesn't- oop!" Sakura clamped her hand over her mouth and glared at Ino, who was leaning close over her desk in anticipation.

"Afraid of what? Afraid of _what_, Sakura?!" Ino moaned, leaning in closer.

"Y-you bitch! You tricked me!" Sakura babbled, her face going red and flustered.

"Well, yeah, honey, I knew you had something you really had to tell me, but you and that pride of yours would never let you just openly tell me. At least you're easily tripped up when it comes to love stuff like this!" Ino said cheerfully, ignoring the growing aura of dangerousness around her pink-haired friend.

"But really, Sakura, tell me. I know it's bothering you, and I don't like seeing my best friend so sad and messed up," Ino said softly.

The hot air inflating Sakura's temper immediately deflated and the other girl's sincerity, and suddenly she looked very tired," Fine," she exhaled, resting her forehead on her hands and rubbing her temples, "Well, you know that Saturday when we finally kissed, right? Man, had I been wanting to do that forever, Ino. That was a dream come true. I really love him," she said quietly, holding back a groan of frustration at how mushy and weak she sounded right then, "Only now I'm not sure. It felt so special and amazing, like sparks and everything - like love. But I'm... just not sure now. I don't think he feels the same way. I feel really desperate and stupid, like I'm the only one who wants it, like some stupid, crushing fangirl. And, like, I ruined our friendship, because he's been avoiding me, and I've been avoiding him because I feel so desperate and embarrassed and I just wish the whole thing had never happened," by now she was almost in tears, her bangs purposefully hiding her eyes from Ino as she kept her hand on her forehead, "And we still haven't finished that damned physics project yet," her voice broke.

"Aw, honey," Ino protested, scooting her chair over and enveloping Sakura in her thin arms, rocking her back and forth a little, "You're just such a _silly _girl. Brilliant as hell, and you can write better love stories than anyone I know, but in the end, you still have no clue about your own love life," she pulled away a little to stare straight back at watery, green eyes, "Now I wasn't there, and I'm not you, and I'm not Sasuke, I'm not an expert and I don't pretend to be," she smirked, "Okay, maybe I do pretend to be an expert," she got a teary, little laugh from the other girl, "But Sakura," she said urgently, shaking her shoulder a little for emphasis, "I see the way he looks at you. I see the way he acts when you're not around, and the change that happens when he sees you. Trust me, he feels for you too. That guy hardly feels at all for _anything_, but for you, he does. And stupid! He's not the one avoiding you; you just said _you're_ avoiding _him_! Honestly, it sounds like _you're _the one sending mixed signals. I'll bet he's the one who's depressed, because he thinks you don't love him back," Ino said confidently.

Sakura finally shook back her hair, the moisture in her eyes nearly brimming over, "Yeah, right."

* * *

"Okay, you have three minutes to tell me what's going through that bastard, pretty boy head of yours that's got you so depressed," Naruto growled firmly as he and Sasuke walked down the fine arts hallway together. If the Uchiha though that his obnoxious best friend would be oblivious to his especial moodiness, then he was quite wrong.

"None of your effing business," he said smoothly, with the perfect blend of annoyance, eff-off, and indifference as usual, but Naruto had known him long enough, his ears were good enough to hear the sad note in his voice, how his voice broke a little on the last word. He quickly turned away, hand reached out to turn the doorknob to the band hall, but Naruto shot out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him, and maneuvred his body in front of the door, blocking Sasuke's way.

"The bell rings in two minutes. Tell me, or I'll stay here and make you late for class, and ruin your lifetime perfect attendance record," Naruto said, a serious, business-like glint in his cerulean eyes.

Sasuke glared coldly down at the boy in front of him with all the hate he could muster, but Naruto always did refused to be fazed by his stares.

"Nothing!" he growled defiantly, attempting to throw him out of the way.

Naruto was just as strong, held his ground, "You have one minute forty seconds now."

"Sakura then. There, told you," he grit through his teeth.

"Contrary to your belief, I'm not an idiot. I already know that."

"We haven't finished that physics project yet, and she hasn't offered to work together again, so I'm worried about my grade."

"Liar."

"Naruto-

"Sasuke, I know it's personal. I'm your best friend; I may as well have the power to read your mind."

"Go ahead, read my mind then," the Uchiha said defiantly, trying another glare.

"Alright. You made a move. You're in love with her and you know it. You're an unsure, shy, self-conscious bastard who's never liked a girl before, and you'd rather die before you'd admit it, but you're scared stiff. You don't know if you made the right move. You think she doesn't feel the same way, but instead of being a man, gathering up some balls, and talking to her about it, seeing how she really does feel, you're avoiding her, avoiding the problem, like a coward. And that's not fair to either of you. You're making yourself miserable, and your little emo heart is fragile enough."

"... I resent the emo heart comment," he said finally, expression still stormy.

"Fine, but the rest is right, no?" Naruto pressed.

"You said you can read my mind didn't you?"

Naruto nodded solemnly

Sasuke's expression finally cleared, his dark eyebrows pulling together, "Yeah, I'm scared. She doesn't like me, and it makes me feel really miserable. I screwed up," he said darkly, his face looking bitter again.

"Just talk to her, man. Don't assume stuff like this. Sit her down and talk about your feelings. Don't be such a coward; honestly, I'm surprised at you. With good things, you have to take a risk."

"I hate to say it, but that's good advice."

"I know! Hinata invited me over to her house, and I had to use the bathroom. All she had to read in there was _Cosmo_ and _Elle_, and I get bored in there. They always have awesome relationship stuff in there."

"... I'm actually feeling a bit of a sense of friendship with you right now. Don't ruin it."

* * *

Sakura slumped in her seat in last period art class, fingering her stick of charcoal moodily, not feeling any less depressed from her recent conversation with Ino. She didn't even pay attention to the fact that the door had quietly opened and the usually raucous class had gone silent, or that they were to be getting a new teacher today.

"Hello, class. I'm your new instructor," a raspy, male voice was saying, "My name-

Sakura shuddered, _'I have this uneasy feeling that people are going to be butting into my life very soon.'_

After school, Naruto and Ino were putting their 'extremely complex' plan into action.

Ino sprinted out of theatre with Naruto right at her heels, as they ran farther down the fine arts hallway. Ino practically kicked down the door of the art classroom, nearly smacking into half the class trying to stampede out and have a crazy Friday night and hungover weekend.

Inside, Sakura was morosely putting sticks of charcoal back into an art locker.

"Sakura," the raspy voice said again, coming up right behind her, making her flinch. She was really going to have to hurry up and get used to that new teacher, because man, was his creepiness distracting, "I wanted to-

"Sakura!" Ino hollered, interrupting, as she finally managed to burst through the door after having to step on several people with her stilletos. She grabbed the gloomy girl's arm and dragged her away, leaving the art teacher with whatever he had been about to say unfinished.

"C'mon, you're coming to my house, I'm making you over, hair, make-up, wardrobe, the works, and then us two hott mamasitas will go out to a club and, well, just screw all those losers going to some lame football game," Ino grinned cheekily, pulling her along as they ran down the hallways.

"Whatever, I could use the estrogen rush I guess," Sakura said listlessly, trying to keep pace of Ino's sprinting.

"That's exactly why we're doing it, hon. You need a perk."

* * *

Meanwhile, Naruto kidnapped Sasuke from the band hall before he even had a chance to put away his saxophone; Naruto had both their backpacks slung over his back and Sasuke carried the gold coloured instrument in one hand and his case in the other, his neck strap still around his neck.

"Teme! Hinata just texted me that her cousin's getting married and I have to come and watch her be a bridesmaid, and you have to come so you can sit with me and keep me awake through the service. Her family would kill me if I fell asleep though some sacred Hyuga union like that," he snorted, "Well, you know how _Neji _is. Picture his family as him like ten-fold," he shuddered, "It's already a shock that I'm even allowed to be Hinata's boyfriend now; I cannot screw this up. So we're going to your house, you're going to put on dressy clothes and put crap in your hair, and we'll go get down our Friday night at the wedding reception. If we're lucky, there'll be alcohol, and who would card a wedding?"

"... and why would I do this with you?" Sasuke grumbled, running to keep up with an exuberant Naruto who was running to his car, because hey, the kid had his backpack, and his pre-cal homework was in there.

"Oh, right. You have to march at a football game I guess, cuz, it's Friday and all," Naruto said innocently, holding open the front doors of the school for his friend,

"... that was a low blow and you know it, you bastard."

"It's not beneath me."

"Fine. I'll humour you. Idiot.

* * *

Later than night, Sakura was in the passenger seat of Ino's beat-up, old convertible, looking even more depressing from the black spaghetti-strap dress and heels Ino had forced her into, and the black eyeliner around her emerald eyes. Ino glanced at her over the steering wheel and scoffed to herself in her sparkling blue halter at how emo her friend was being. Honestly, she looked gorgeous in black as long as she wasn't moping.

"Here we are," Ino announced, keeping up with her cheerfulness, despite how ticked off she was getting. She'd pulled the car up to a fancy French restaurant, whose name Sakura could only guess at the pronunciation of.

"Um, why are we here?" Sakura asked uncertainly, eyeing the trim, green and white awning and quaint orange brickwork. She self-consciously smoothed the shortish hemline of her dress back over her knees.

"Just getting some dinner before the club. That okay?"

"Uh, sure?"

* * *

"Why are we here?" Sasuke complained, eyeing the building in front of the two in distaste.

"I almost forgot. Hinata told me to pick up the food they ordered from this place for the wedding. Just go up to the hostess and say 'Hyuga'," Naruto replied, tapping his hands on the steering wheel of his truck in time to the song blaring out of the radio, adjusting the sleeves of his tux in between songs.

"Why can't you go in and get it then?" Sasuke glared.

"I'm sort of... um... banned from entering that restaurant," Naruto grimaced, "Long story... don't ask. Anyway, security, the manager, and the hostess all have my picture in their books, and I don't wanna be arrested."

"Whatever, just this once. Because if you're arrested, I'm left out here without a car."

"Gee, that's the spirit. Oh, fix your tie before you go in! And take a look at your hair!"

* * *

In the entry hall of the restaurant, Ino suddenly grimaced and ran right back outside.

"Left my purse in the car! I'll be right back!" she called to Sakura over her shoulder, "Ask for the reservation under 'Hyuga'. Hinata set it up for us. Just go on without me!" and with that, she jogged off into the dim light outside.

Shrugging to herself, Sakura asked and the hostess led her to a two-person table in a dim corner of the restaurant, lit with candles and that smelled like really good, buttery bread and grapes. She pulled out a chair and waited for Ino.

* * *

Inside, Sasuke had asked for the Hyuga order, and the hostess had brought him to a small table in the back, where, he assumed he was to wait for a minute while they got the order ready for him. The dark-haired teenager absent-mindedly drummed his fingers against the table. He accidentally knocked over something silver on the table and made a napkin fall to the floor. As he was under the table retrieving the cloth, he was aware of the chair opposite of him being pulled away, and someone sitting down. Startled, he straightened up quickly, wound up bumping his head on the table, cursed harshly under his breath, and sat back up in his chair, only to be met with startled eyes staring back at him.

"Sasuke?!"

"S-Sakura?"

-_ring_-

Both of their cell phones ringing simultaneously broke the tension of the awkward meeting for just a second. They each retrieved their phones from either pocket or purse, and flipped them open to read an identical message.

* * *

'We both took the cars, so there's no getting out of this. We'll pick you two up at eleven. And enjoy your DATE together. Patch things up, okay?' -love Ino and Naruto :)

* * *

**I made the deadline, but just barely! I'm proud! Sorry, there are probably tons of mistakes, but I've BEEN out of time for this - I'll edit tomorrow.**

**Arg, Jessie wouldn't stop singing '1985' in the car on the way to band practice today, and Daniel started singing harmony. We're band kids, so if you've ever heard us sing, it's amazing you're still alive to read this. Anyway, I got the song in my head really badly and I just had to YouTube it to listen to it while I typed this, so for getting it in my head, JESSIE, YOU SUCK! Well, you helped inspire me, but you still suck, hon.**

**She's still preoccupied, with 19, 19, 1985!**

**Next chapter the long-awaited date shall go down! What will transpire in that little French restaurant? What means of torture will they use to kill Ino and Naruto once it's over?! Stay tuned.**

**Anyway, I'm back! I missed you all; hope you enjoyed! Go ahead and give me some feedback. Much love.**


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